Words About Heat and Light
by Faerylark
Summary: As Hermione struggles to keep up with everything she has to do, Luna has once again refuted reality as recognized by Hermione. Which is what Hermione expects and yet finds so frustrating during this time of war. 7th year fic. Eventual HGLL...
1. Chapter One:The Fawn and The Lamb

**Title**: "Words about Heat and Light"

**Summary**: Luna Lovegood does things her own way. Hermione Granger likes to do them the way they should be done. And life doesn't account for either of them. slash

**Disclaimer**: You know the usual, this isn't mine. I might have even stolen this part from somebody else. And I've got my own handcuffs, thanks.

_Chapter One: The Fawn and the Lamb_

The night always seemed more genuine to her. Colors were dark and richer. Sounds were clean and louder. Luna even imagined that she could almost feel the magic pulsing through the corridors of Hogwarts sometimes at night.

Days could pass by, varnished over by the mindless drone of timetable studying and scheduled learning, and she didn't always notice the weeks passing, but the nights were real enough.

Hours of sunlight bled all over the place. Daytime was a messy, fussy thing. People rushing, running all around, frantically talking. Her head ached from all the people talking too fast. Luna missed jumbled words, sentences, conversions from people who vied to save what daylight they could; they'd start, and stop, and wander off before her eyes found their face.

Or she'd wake up from wherever the hazy daylight had taken her, to fingers snapping in front of her. She wanted to tell them that no matter how fast they talked, read, walked, thought, nobody could save the day from ending, just like she couldn't stop the sun from rising. Sometimes at night, she'd wander too much, and would loose the hours.

She'd rise from the dungeons or wherever else she'd been wandering to find the dawn stealing its way through the windows of the castle. Then she had no choice but to find her retreat back up to the tower and get ready for the day.

The day would pass. Somewhere, somehow meals and classes were attended, notes were written, books were studied. Then in an awake moment she'd find dinner to over, and it'd be time to go back up to the common room or library to candle lights that would appear all over the castle.

More notes were created, new books were read, essays were written, and then finally people would start trickling off to bed. Then as the night's silence would build, Luna could shove her books and papers and ink and the day aside, and wander out into Hogwarts corridors to see what she could find.

Luna counted doors as she ambled down the passageway. The castle walls seemed closer here in the higher parts of the castle. She still wasn't all that far down from the common room, but there didn't seem to be that many students out, maybe it wasn't all that late yet.

Sometimes when she wasn't careful, when she lost track of where she was or how soon she had come there, she'd stumble across pairs of snogging students, wildly spending the heat they had salvaged from the day.

Usually she'd notice them first, and would creep around them and continue on, but sometimes they'd wake up still fevered from each other before she noticed, and someone would smirk a comment at her; often one she couldn't quite understand. And then she would rush back to the fresh, still dark.

A little beyond the library, up one floor, and just pass the door with the painting of a fawn and a lamb, there was a corridor that led past a small alcove partially hidden behind a tapestry. Luna was going there tonight, as she had last night, and several nights before that.

She had a project of sorts in the works in that alcove. And even when that project didn't beckon to her the calm, if dank, coolness of darkness and stone made sense in a way that the heat and light of day couldn't. She could retreat here, when she found surprises elsewhere.

XxXx

The alcove had a certain smell about it. Dusty and dormant, there was safety in what was already forgotten.

Not even the Hogwarts elves bothered themselves with the cleaning in here anymore. The tapestry served its purposes. It hid the alcove of course, but it also buffered against the noise of the outside. And it kept the day out too, trapped the light in its subjects, and redirected the eye towards its games.

She had thought about using the Room of Requirement. She could wish for that. She could wish for a dark forest, one so deep the daylight never hit the forest floor. But the forest made her dream, in a way where she couldn't get any work done. She had been left wanting of a place like the alcove during all the hours while she waited for night to come, and during for her first two years in school. Before the night had finally led her here.

There were no trees here, but the light and the dreams stayed out anyway. The light didn't even bother to find its way through the dirty little window much during the day either. But she could make the move; she could take her project and run.

The alcove could go back to being forgotten, and maybe it wouldn't even mind, it must have been left forgotten for so long before she chanced across it while looking for a place to spend her dark hours in. From behind the tapestry, she looked out towards the corridor.

Of course, anyone who came by the fifth floor on their way to Gryffindor Tower could chance by this little alcove with its dingy little window, and if she was working when they did that, when they remembered this alcove existed... If somebody saw what she was doing, well, the other children already looked at her oddly. Perhaps they wouldn't even think much of this.

She could always move the project to some place safer and go back to bringing her schoolwork here. Or go back a little farther than that, into the days she spent sleeping here, curled up against the corner. But the professors seemed to prefer her in class during the day, so as lovely as that sounded, it wouldn't do.

But at least so far, nobody else came to this alcove. It was only slightly hidden behind its odd sort of tapestry depicting funny little boys and funny little dogs (though they could be poorly depicted digturls, Luna wasn't sure). Obviously the boys were befuddled by wrackspurts, no other reason to run around like that during the day. Children were more susceptible than adults.

To both, the wrackspurts, digturls, and the twisted high of daylight. Why just yesterday she saw three Ravenclaws, four Slytherins, two Gryffindors, and fourteen Hufflepuffs all muddled up by wrackspurts, running around like small dogs by the lake, or at least they kind of looked like small dogs from the little window on the fifth floor. At least they weren't crying like the boys in the tapestry though.

The boys in the tapestry reminded her of that nursery tale about the naughty boys who were so bad their nursemaid cursed them into a tapestry, leaving them to play their rowdy games without stop until the tapestry crumbled. It was always daylight in the tapestry; she only looked at it sideways. At least the wrong side of the tapestry was dark.

She had once asked her mother how long tapestries lasted, and all she got was a hollow sort of look and her answer, a long time. She hated tapestries.

But she liked this alcove. It had saved her from the older Ravenclaws who had wanted to take her necklace. They liked to take her things. She had offered once to make them their own butterbeer cork necklaces, but they had just kind of laughed in a way that hadn't felt quite good.

They were silly like that sometimes, even when she was pretty sure they weren't befuddled by wrackspurts.

She really could move her project out of this alcove. Perhaps she even should. She could work on it in the Room of Requirement. But she always circled back to how she liked this alcove. Often when she was wandering about the castle, at night too, but more often during the day, her feet would bring her back here.

It was always good company, in a way that familiar spaces often are. Before her project, she would sometimes borrow library books to sneak up here when the light of day was too direct or too bright, so she could do her homework without distraction.

Madam Pince started suspecting her though. So Luna could no longer really borrow as many reference books to bring up here as she used to. It was too bad really.

Especially since most of the books she needed for the project were not really supposed to leave the library (even though they weren't really going far, just up this one floor, to this little alcove.

The books didn't even really notice, she was sure.), but she and the books still sometimes managed to find their way together up here. But she sometimes did her homework in the library.

Sometimes strange things happened in the library. For instance one evening, maybe a day or maybe a week ago, Hermione Granger and her got into an odd sort of argument.

It started out normally enough. Hermione had a rigickrop in her eye, and Luna was only trying to help. But Hermione liked to use words like lasers more than she liked to cry, and her tongue could do such sharp things when it's spitting words out at Luna.

Hermione's words smacked quickly against her, shoving her, leaving her feeling like she was being pushed farther and farther away.

Do words warp and bend the way light will? They can muffle and sting and strangle like light does. But between Hermione and Luna, that wasn't unusual.

Hermione likes to talk more than she will listen, and she uses words that shove spaces and distances between people.

And Luna had just crept forward a bit, to bend herself around and under the words that were shoving against her like heat, to just try to help, when Hermione attacked her in a new different way.

Suddenly there was much, much more heat. Usually heat found Luna like another form of light, but this time it was coming from so close, and it was entrapping, engulfing her within and around Hermione.

Before that tongue could slash hot streaks up and across, like a cold slap to the face that burns after a minute. But this close, her tongue, that _heat_ was sweet. As she wrapped her arms around Hermione's neck to pull them a little closer to that heat, Luna could see why those trysting students would try so hard to bring such heat with them into the night.

Hermione wrenched away and fled as abruptly as she started, leaving Luna in the library. Luna too soon got up and left, but she did not follow Hermione past the fifth floor, though she thought that heat could be nice to have again.

Instead she ducked into the alcove and tried to continue on with her work, as she would have before. Indeed, tonight she had come back to the alcove to continue again. But even now, she was still stuck inside that heat. Hot lips against her own, and whatever it was that Hermione did with her tongue against hers. That sear left its impression across her lips, her tongue, her thoughts.

XxXx

Hermione never did anything without careful and complete consideration first. She was _not_ Ron to be going around doing that kind of stuff all the time. So to go from talking, to berating, to, well, _not talking_ so suddenly, that was not like her.

This was not a good way to start off the fall term with, it just wasn't. The impulse had hit her in that way that her emotions always got riled up around Luna, she felt that same exhilarating rush, that same urge to control what effect that girl had on her, all the while scolding herself for the heat that always rose to her cheeks.

But she always overcame such impulses before, she never acted irrationally; she always used logic. She thought through her actions before she took them. If she was confused, she made lists. She had made a list about this before, last year.

The cons had taken two or three pages. There hadn't even been any pros until two nights ago when she had added one in an angry fit of honesty. But she didn't do these things. She didn't get herself into these situations. And now, she didn't know what to do.

The words had just poured out of her, censoring the madness that radiated in pulses around that girl, Hermione would cut through with what words and proof she could. With reason. Quick and fast, calm but heated, rational yet still fevered; she'd fix the strange, unbalanced ideas that Luna would crash into the air in her ridiculous sort of way.

That's how she dealt with Luna Lovegood. She certainly did not kiss a girl in the middle of an argument, and then run off like a ninny. She especially did not, ever do _anything_ like a ninny.

But then until two evenings ago, she also didn't kiss Ravenclaws in public. And up until then she certainly would never snog Luna in middle of a hissed (and yes _teary_) argument in the very back of a semi-deserted library. Hermione sank down onto the floor by her bed and winced. It was just not _done_.

But then one second Hermione was trying to convince Luna that she did not have (of all silly things) a rigickrop attacking her eye, and the next… well she wasn't sure what she was trying to convince Luna of then. It had all started out with was an eyelash.

A simple discarded eyelash that had gotten into her eye. A simple explanation for a tearing eye, no outlandish ones needed.

But of course simple, reasonable explanations do not travel far with Luna. For just as Hermione was patiently explaining that and searching for her handkerchief, Luna got that slighted, contrite look of hers on her face (the one that made her look even a little more unfocused than usual).

Because one second Hermione was talking and rubbing at her stupid eye that was still tearing, and the next second Luna was really close to her.

And with that quiet pout, she was still talking about how one has to kill rigickrops in some silly sort of way, and then Hermione was thinking about how she much she wanted to throttle that girl, and damn it, her eye was still tearing.

And then her face was too warm, and Luna was much too close still talking about rigickrops and _heat_ of all things and… And then Hermione kissed her.

Hermione shoved her hot face into her hands; she hadn't seen Luna since. That girl probably thought she was crazy.

Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil came into the dormitory. Lavender wasn't quite over her and Ron's break up, and as usual upon seeing Hermione went straight to her bed, and grabbed her cloak left again, telling Parvati to hurry up on her way out.

Parvati also grabbed her cloak out of her trunk, but paused slightly at the door to quietly tell Hermione that Ron was yelling up the staircase for her, and wouldn't she go down and get him to shut it already? Hermione glanced at the door, she hadn't even heard him.

She went into the bathroom, splashed cold water on her face, then also hurried down; maybe he and Harry had found something important.

XxXx

Luna ducked quickly through the night's chill and around the dappled bushy branches, and went farther along the twisting path heading deeper into the forest. She thought that she had originally found it about here.

She looked up towards the trunk of what could have been an old, creaky oak tree, but she wasn't really good at names, but it still looked like the same tree from two years ago. It was just as big, and it loomed just to the right of where the path forked; one to go both back to the castle and another that bended around some other low trees before dipping out of view.

Luna clutched her damp cloak tighter around herself and turned into the wind. She hadn't wanted to come back here, but had run out of other options.

She had originally been standing over there near that path-fork looking up into the chilly darkness of the top branches of that large tree, when she had first seen that little gleam out of the corner of her eye. A small sort of white pebble was almost glowing out from under one of the bushes off to the other side of the path.

At first she had thought the light leaking through the heavy cover above might have simply be reflecting off a smooth surface and jumping into the back of her eye… But it was night, and with the wind and clouds, the moonlight wasn't all that strong. So she had crept closer, and it was then that she found the pebble.

The same pebble that two years later, resided at times under her pillow, in her robes' pockets, or safely hidden in the alcove where she worked upon it or one of the others that she had found by the lake.

But none of the others hummed, and none of them stayed cold to the touch either. And while all of the other pebbles were about the same grayish color and general shape, none of them glowed when she looked at them from the corner of a glance.

So far she had tried some different spells and hexes, and even clear nail polish once, but now she had a different idea. She headed over to where she had first picked up that little pebble, in a winter detention spent trailing after some professor and trying to stay both warm and awake, because she had thought the pebble to be pretty. Pretty enough to keep.

And now she was back, with more pebbles, and she let them slide off her hand into the bush. They fell haphazardly, glancing off what twigs and branches that were there, before settling into the dead leaves below.

Luna would come back for them later. She wanted them to give off that same strange, cold glow and hum. Maybe they would absorb here what she couldn't teach them back in the castle. She looked down at the ground; the cold was seeping through her boots, freezing her blood from the inside out. She really should have cast a warming charm. Chilled, she went slowly back to castle, the whispers and dreams on the wind left behind her.

XxXx


	2. Chapter Two: A Ship In Three Winds

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

_Chapter Two:_ _A Ship In Three Winds_

Hermione glanced towards the clock behind her and then over at Madam Pince once more, only forty-five minutes until closing, and some younger Ravenclaws (none of them sixth years) were still playing host towards Madam Pince's observant if excessive eye. It had taken Hermione a bit longer than expected to finish the potions essay, elemental bases were much more complex than one might prematurely assume. And the schoolwork associated with the seventh year curriculum alone, could take up all of your free time.

Hermione couldn't see how with all the extra schoolwork, the search for the horcruxes, and everything else going on with the war, she was ever to find time to sleep. Let alone eat or relax. Perhaps, she should start bringing her books with her to meals again.

And she hadn't been able to give her potions essay as much attention as she should, she had spent some time looking for books that might help them find the horcruxes, but she still hadn't been having much luck so far in that regard. But back to her essay, one cannot give a proper discussion about the proper brewing and use of crystallized bases unless one also at least mentions that a dampening spell must always be used during the final cooling, to allow proper crystallization to occur.

And if that is mentioned, one should also include how the bottom of the cauldron must be scratched just prior to cooling in order to properly encourage the crystals to latch onto the right surface. So once Hermione finally settled down to finish writing the essay, she still had quite a bit to go on about.

Which was very good because given what happened last night, she had even more going on that she'd like nothing more than ignore, because everything had gone from frustrating and bad to much, much worse. Harry hadn't been with Ron as Hermione expected when she came down the stairs. Ron, all alone and looking rather nervous, had asked her if she wanted to go for a quick walk. Hermione nodded, certainly nothing of importance could be said in the commons room.

They didn't go far, just far enough away to assure some privacy. But Ron didn't have anything to say about Horcruxes or anything else of importance. Instead, he rather anxiously, and with a great deal of looking anywhere but actually at her, told her that he imagined that he fancied her, and asked her to go out with him. Then he kissed her.

Hermione would have really liked to say that she liked the kiss. She seemed to be getting a lot of experience with kissing as of late. If asked before her kiss with Luna, she would have thought that a kiss with Ron would have been nice (and much overdue, thank you). After all, out of all the guys, he was one of only two that she was really close to. It made sense.

But she had just stood there kind of shocked, while he was kissing her, and trying to shove his hands into her hair. It hadn't been completely awful. It had even seemed almost pleasant, after the surprise of it wore off. But no matter how she tried, she hadn't managed to get caught in it, and hadn't gotten that fuzzy sort of feeling, where you're warm from your head to your toes, and she certainly hadn't gotten hot.

And to be honest, she'd become rather bored with it long before it finally ended, and caught herself going over what she needed to get done the next day. She had also caught herself thinking about her kiss with Luna, but she needn't think about that now… She had schoolwork to concentrate on. And the new situation with Ron to deal with.

She could tell, when he stopped, that Ron had known something was wrong. After all, even he could notice that she hadn't moved, that she had just stood there passively waiting for the inevitable to end. But when he asked her what was wrong, she couldn't tell him what it was.

She didn't know. He looked at her, for a second, got rather red with what could have been embarrassment, then swore and left. She felt guilty, but she wasn't sure what for, or for whom.

And now she was in the library, which was a good place to avoid at least Ron. Ron hadn't spoken to her in the classes they still shared, so she had focused instead upon taken extra concise and complete notes; without him to explain things to during class, she had the time to do it.

Instead he had partnered with Neville when needed, leaving her to explain why, his two best friends were (yet again) not speaking, to Harry. She hadn't even known where to start, and so Harry and her had moved on quickly to speaking of other matters. Like Horcruxes, and the new transfiguration professor, whom they both quietly thought were a little… dull.

But they both agreed that it was quite good that he was a member of the Order. He might be rather drab and nondescript, but he probably wasn't going to try to kill any of the students. Harry was particularly happy about this development.

In the library, where Hermione was finally back to furiously adding important details to her essay, Madam Pince, it seems, had finally given up watching for negligent book handling from the library's inhabitants. But instead of heading to the front desk, where she had needed to go for the last several minutes as a check out queue was forming, was instantly redirected towards a small group of rowdy First Years.

As she finished the last couple footnotes for her essay and waited for Madam Pince to head back over to the front desk, Hermione reached across the table towards one of her reference books, realizing that she had forgotten to include the citations on long-term storage needs of the potion in her essay.

Really, she needed to get her head together. Schoolwork needed your full attention. It deserved it. And the proper use of a stabilizing buffer was especially important to ensure crystal longevity, and so needed to be properly referenced. She bent back over her essay.

Oh, eight-teen minutes until closing. Really there just isn't enough time after dinner to spend in the library until it closes at eight. And she couldn't have helped noticing that neither Ron nor Luna had been at dinner. She had expected that from Ron, but Luna might miss the other meals of the day, but she usually showed up for at least part of dinner. She hoped the other girl wasn't upset. She grimaced down at her desk where six books, several potion journals, her essay, and all her notes lay.

She would need what time there was before closing to put everything away and check out her books. She didn't have time to worry over what that silly girl was thinking or doing. She shouldn't be thinking about _her_ at all. There were horcruxes still out there, for Merlin's sake.

At least Madam Pince had finally made it over to where the line of students waiting to check out their books was even longer. Perhaps she had enough time to use the Marauder's Map to try to track down Luna before curfew. She shook her head, disturbed with herself. That was a bad idea.

What would she even say to the girl? 'Sorry I kissed you, why didn't you come to dinner?' didn't seem like quite the thing to say. And Hermione didn't even want to see the girl. She really didn't. Well, she shouldn't anyway.

She rubbed her eyes, at least thirty-nine inches wasn't too long for an essay. And if she rewrote it tomorrow morning before breakfast, she might be able to reduce its length by a couple inches or so.

Essay done, Hermione finally shelved most of her references, bringing only a potions book, _Uses and Misuses of Elemental Bases_, and her more promising find, _A Complete Accounting of the Rowena Ravenclaw _(which hopefully included a copy of her will), up towards the front desk. It might have nothing unique that the other biographies didn't have, but a more material understanding of what the founder of Ravenclaw valued couldn't hurt.

Soon after, Hermione headed quickly back to the Commons Room.

XxXx

Earlier that evening, Harry glanced up at Hermione as she sat down late for dinner. "Find anything new?" He shifted over on the bench to make room. Causing Neville on his other side to glance up to give Hermione a quick wave hello before going back to his conversation with Seamus Finnigan.

"No, not yet," Hermione settled in and methodically started portioning food onto her plate, "I was thinking of doing some research in the library tonight, but I've also got that potions essay to work on still."

"It's not due for another couple days, Hermione, I'm sure you'll manage." Harry glanced up from his plate, "You think Ron's going to make it down to dinner? That's strange. He's been acting real off all day. You two aren't fighting are you?"

Hermione flicked her eyes away from Harry's. "I'm not sure. You know, I think he's upset with me. But, eh, well… I'll talk to him later. Really, it's not like he doesn't know where the kitchens are." She snorted at that, and went back to eating.

"Besides," she hissed under her breath going back to what still had her more distracted, "I still haven't found any sort of real assorting of Ravenclaw's belongings. Are you sure he would have used something from all the founders?"

"That's want Dumbledore thought." Harry shifted slightly in his seat; it was still somewhat hard to think of Dumbledore in past tense. He had spent all summer, first at the horrible Dursleys', then at Godric's Hollow, then at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, searching furiously for a way to find the horcruxes.

For everything that had changed over the summer, and everything he had learned, he still hadn't found anything on the location or identity of the horcruxes, and so September had found him furious and aggravated, but headed back to Hogwarts all the same due their lack of progress or any other sort of plans.

"Hum. I'll make some time tonight then." Hermione followed his glance to find him fixated upon the much changed high table, and then let her eyes sweep quickly over the Ravenclaw table. Neither of them had anything more to say.

A little while later, found Harry, finishing his meal and getting ready to leave. "Hey, Hermione. Could you think about something for me?" He waited until he had caught her attention, at her nod he continued quietly, "I was thinking about reinstating the DA. Just for the, eh, regulars. You know who."

She nodded, glancing at Neville whose attention was still engaged elsewhere. "Keep everyone in shape, up to par and such, you know? But we need a less risky way to get in touch with everyone. Just think about it okay?"

He would think about it too. He had too. When they finally did get a lead, he wanted to leave at least some students at the castle who would be able to take action should anything happen.

Death Eater activity had only increased over the summer, apparently emboldened by Dumbledore's death and the resulting chaos. And then there were those second-hand letters that McGonagall had insisted upon showing him after both of them had finally viewed Dumbledore's pensive for the last time, but Harry refused to think of any of all that now, least they darken his mood even further.

Dratted McGonagall, couldn't she leave him be? He had the right to his wrath, as stupid, inconvenient, and misplaced as she might find it. He had been there to see _everything_, so he should know.

"Okay. I'll get to work on something that'll work better than the coins… See you later, I've got to get to the library."

"Of course. I think I'll go see if I can't find Ron. He'll want in on it." They both stood up, added their good-byes to the rest of the table, and left the Great Hall.

XxXx

Hermione settled into a corner chair in the commons room, and closed her eyes; the book borrowed from the library still perched open on her lap. After all the events of last year, you would think that everyone (including herself) would be a little more focused upon what was really important; the brewing war with Voldemort. But she had barely stopped herself from asking to borrow the Map from Harry…

Professor Dumbledore was dead. Professor McGonagall was now interim headmistress, and more importantly was neither teaching transfigurations nor acting as Head of House. Slughorn had stayed on as both the professor of potions and as the Slytherin Head of House. Harry had seemed a bit surprised at that.

Harry as it were, was the only one truly focused upon what was important. He had come back after summer very focused, and though Hermione didn't like to think it, he came back rather desperate too. Because of the horcruxes. He had been happy enough to see Professor Lupin come back, though it was still unclear to everyone whether he would become Head of House. Hermione hoped so; she mainly hoped that just _someone_ would be made Head of House.

Ron was… he was trying. Harry had stopped her for only a second to whisper in her ear, before going up to the Boys' Dormitory with Ron. Ron hadn't even looked at her. He obviously still wasn't speaking to her, but he had sent a couple messages to her through Harry. Harry was less than thrilled about this; nobody here had time for childish behavior.

But he hadn't realized yet that it was Hermione's fault. It had to be, she still felt guilty over that kiss. Ron must not have actually told Harry what was going on. She was glad for that at least. She still wasn't sure why she felt guilty, but obviously it shouldn't have happened. Which was strange, because she had thought all last year, that that was what she _wanted_ to happen. Maybe she was just putting herself under too much stress. Perhaps it would all blow over after a couple of days.

It had to, because there were too many important things going on. Fall term was almost half over, and they had been planning to use Christmas break to look for Horcruxes. Only they still didn't have a clue as to where to look. She frowned down at the open book in her lap.

She had to focus on what was really important. She would apologize to Ron tomorrow, and tell him that she was just all out of sorts with the developing war, and couldn't they just stay friends for now? There were more important things going on. She turned a page, and started to read.

XxXx

Later that night found Luna tinkering away in the alcove, working a bit at this or that, and staring out the window towards the Forbidden Forest, even though she couldn't see it from this side of the castle. She knew it was there.

Maybe tomorrow she could go check on the stones she had discarded beneath the bushes. She scrunched up her nose, how was one to know when they had been there long enough? Maybe she'd give it another couple days. She really didn't want to go thrice into the forest in as many days, if they weren't ready tonight.

The last pebble of the last batch she had fiddled with had finally muted, settling back to its original gray color. And so instead, tonight, Luna was brewing a strong memory potion for the pebbles, with the hopes that perhaps they'd absorb and remember to hold onto their glow better.

Luna peeked over at the tapestry again, she had sealed it carefully before starting the rather smoky potion brewing, but sometimes the tapestry would get unstuck, pulling the window-directed smoke out into the corridor. Someone finding smoke seeping out from behind the tapestry wouldn't be good.

She looked into the cauldron; she had to keep the potion quite hot as it bubbled around the pebbles at the bottom of the cauldron. She was a bit worried that the potion would object to the pebbles, but the pepperup potion had turned out fine, even if it hadn't really helped the pebbles any.

And if the stones didn't like the potion, as they hadn't liked the eclipsor potion she had tried last week, she could always try some Quodpot Solution upon them first. And she could give the rest of the memory potion to Neville Longbottom.

He liked the eclipser readily enough, said that as a finish, it made for rather good glow-in-the-dark notes. And she would to check on the pebbles tomorrow night, wouldn't want them to go too long out there in forest.

Happy with her plans and with the cool night breeze stealing away the fumes from her work, Luna settled back to watch the small cauldron bubble and to let her mind wander away for a bit.

XxXx

Ron stared up towards the top of his curtained bed. This was stupid. Hermione was being stupid. How could a girl spend all year completely put out about him and Lavender (who still wasn't speaking to him, thank you very much), and be all puppy eyes and crying on his shoulder when that bastard murdered Dumbledore, and now not want to be his girlfriend?

It just didn't make any bloody sense. No matter what Ginny said about how he _looked_ while doing it, he was a good kisser! _Everyone_ looked silly. She wasn't being fair. It was just a first kiss. _All _first kisses were a little awkward, that didn't mean she should just give up! He deserved another shot.

Hermione was the right girl for him. Of course she was. Why wouldn't she? They were perfect. She was pretty, and smart, and really brave too. He was brave, very brave. Didn't Lavender say that all the time? And he was good at quidditch too.

There was no reason Hermione shouldn't like him too. She was just being silly, like Harry. Ron liked Ginny dating Harry _way_ better than he liked watching Dean _once again _put his hands all over his sister.

Ron wished everyone would just get their acts together. He punched his pillow a bit, rolled over, and yanked his blankets up to his chin. Finding the horcruxes and the war with the Death Eaters would be miserable enough. He didn't want all this stupid girl drama too.

And Hermione just didn't understand. He was totally mature enough to handle a relationship. He was mature enough last year when she accused him of that, and he was loads more mature now. And he was a much better kisser now too. Girls.

At least with the DA and all that, he'd have something to get his mind off of how wrong and off-plan everything else in his life was going. Hermione wasn't talking to him. Harry was so serious and moody this year. And he hadn't even made Head Boy.

Ron squeezed his eyes shut, determined to go to sleep. Life sucked.

XxXx


	3. Chapter Three: No Fawn Unspotted

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

_Chapter Three:_ _No Fawn Unspotted_

The next morning at breakfast, the trio (two of which still weren't quite speaking) set about telling the remaining members of the DA about the preliminary meeting which was to be held tonight at eight in the Room of Requirement.

It was rather quick work to let the Gryffindor members know, as Ron had simply told Ginny last night, and Hermione hastily told Neville in between comments about the Herbology lecture they had had the previous day. There weren't many people they trusted to tell. The hitch as far as they were concerned was that Luna, as a Ravenclaw, naturally wasn't sitting at their table.

They had originally thought that if Ginny shared a class with her today, she could inconspicuously inform Luna, but Ginny reported to Ron this morning that even if she had a class with the Ravenclaws today (which she didn't), you couldn't really count upon Luna showing up. Hermione just stared incredulously at Ron as he relayed that in undertones to them.

Grimacing, she rolled her eyes over to the Ravenclaw table where Luna looked to be just about asleep in her porridge, "You're kidding… How do you _not_ show up for class? Where does she even go?" She trailed off with a "She must be _so_ far behind…" and continued staring at the Ravenclaw table in dismay.

Ron finished swallowing his eggs; "Don't Ravenclaws spend lots of time in the library, or something?" Harry shrugged; he didn't really know what most of the other houses did in their spare time. Not unless you're counting certain Slytherins from years past.

But Harry nodded anyway; his general picture of the Ravenclaw house involved a lot of students that were probably in all likeliness, all too much like Hermione. Too bad they couldn't trust more of them to help research for the DA.

The only Ravenclaw _still_ in the DA was Luna, but perhaps given proper direction she could be useful, assuming of course they found a way to tell her about tonight's meeting.

At that thought Harry glanced over at Hermione to find her still fixated towards the other end of the Great Hall, and turned back to Ron, "Um, right… So, any ideas about how to tell her?"

But agitating enough, Ron, too was just kind of looking at Hermione staring off into space, an odd mix of concern and distain crossing themselves across his face. Harry shrugged, trying to shake off his creeping frustration.

It was rather early in the morning for this. And he was tired of whispering. He poked Ron's shoulder again, "What do you say to one of us passing her a note as we leave for class?"

Snapping out of her fascination with the other table, Hermione focused quickly upon Harry, "I can do it." Harry smiled a bit, "okay, it probably wouldn't look strange if the two of you ran into each other in the library or something."

And if Harry found it strange that Hermione colored slightly at that and then glanced back across the Great Hall before that she could make it look unintentional, he couldn't let it bother him as he already had far more to think about than he ever really had wanted.

Ron startled, a bit affronted and jealous by the blush he saw Harry rouse out of the usually poised Hermione, and finally spluttered, "just make sure you, eh, you know, curse the paper, or something… who knows what Luna might do with it…don't want anyone else getting a hold of it."

He looked over at the Slytherin table, where even the more subdued nature of that house this year hadn't lessened his hostility towards it. Hermione rolled her eyes and nodded, still stiffening at bit at the slight hostility in his voice.

"Well, okay then," Harry yawned, looked down at his disregarded plate, and tiredly turned back to his breakfast, already turning over what they needed to get done in DA tonight in his head.

XxXx

When Harry mumbled something about a letter he needed to get off before class and nipped quickly back to the dorms, Hermione took the opportunity to grab Ron's sleeve and hold him back a bit from the rest of the crowd making their way to the classrooms.

She glanced nervously up into his face, "I know you're mad at me. I'm sorry, I really am. I just don't think it, you know, would be a good idea right now, maybe later. After all of this is over, and things settle down?"

"And do you know when that is? We might not see it Hermione. There are no promises here. If you were really sorry and worried about how the war would effect everyone, you wouldn't have acted so prudish, Hermione. We shouldn't be wasting time making plans for what may never happen for us," he crossed his arms over his chest, "You either want to try this out, or you don't. You can't just stop halfway in the middle and then freeze. It's not fair."

"I know, it's just…" she started walking towards the transfiguration classroom, Ron stiff and staring ahead at her side. "We need each other. All three of us. There's too much at stake to risk everything like that on a whim."

Ron hardened at that last part. He was fighting in all this so he _could_ have the life he wanted and the people he adored. She couldn't just assume he had acted rashly and hadn't put any thought into it at all. He did both all the time!

"I know what I want Hermione. I don't want to put my life on hold. I want to date girls. I want to date you. It shouldn't be too hard to ask for the normal things in life, Hermione! There's more to it than books and war. And I don't think strengthening our relationship can hurt us. You might think that letting this war consume you is the best way to fight it. Harry might agree with you, but Hermione…"

He trailed off when he saw the disengaged look in Hermione's eyes. She was watching everyone leaving the Great Hall. Couldn't she see that if they didn't keep living their lives during the war, they wouldn't have anything left once the war was finally over? Couldn't anyone see that?

Fed up with Hermione, life, the war, and everything else in general Ron stormed on ahead. Just once he would have liked to actually take Hermione to the Halloween Feast. He hoped Hermione liked pairing with Neville in transfiguration.

Then he heard a couple Ravenclaw girls giggling over who they saw kissing Luna in the library the other day. He saw red. Screw bloody transfiguration, he was going down to the lake. Screw Hermione too and all her 'focus on the war' shit. She could have just well bloody told him.

Well, fuck that. Luna could have her, and her books too. He had blown off Lavender again last night, thinking maybe Hermione would just take a little convincing. And now he felt like kicking something. Hard.

XxXx

Hermione blinked, as she watched Ron storm angrily ahead and stare at a couple of Ravenclaw Seventh years who fell silent as she passed. That hadn't gone all that well. Not horrible, not well, but at least it seemed like they were back to talking to each other.

She was right, they already had so much going on that they couldn't really control, no need to add to it. And now she still had to find _Luna_ today about the DA meeting tonight. And make it seem like an accident. Eh. It was shaping up to be a tiring day.

She was surprised to arrive at transfiguration to find neither Harry nor Ron had made it there ahead of her. How odd. She had been distracted during the entire lesson watching the door the door, and waiting for either of them to show up.

Afterwards, on her way to her next class Hermione finally spotted Harry loitering outside the door of their second class. He followed her in and excitedly whispered that he had gotten some really good material for tonight's lesson through McGonagall this morning.

Hermione was a little confused as to _when_ he might have gotten this info, as he hadn't gotten an owl at breakfast from what she remembered and he didn't get anything exciting last night either. She was also curious if that had been what kept him away from first period, or if something else had stopped him. And where exactly was Ron? But of course the professor walked in before she could get anything more useful than new defense charms out of Harry, and she wasn't sure if she'd have time during lunch to ask. She wasn't even sure if she'd make it to lunch.

After all, she had to find Luna, and _she _didn't plan on skipping any classes unless she really needed the extra time. She'd never find the time to catch up, get Ron (who still hadn't shown up, and the professor had already started today's lecture) and Harry caught up, attend DA, and finish the potion's essay due tomorrow.

XxXx

Luna glanced up from scrawling in her transfiguration book when she felt something bony and sharp collide with her knee, which was sticking out conspicuously towards the middle of the corridor near the library where she sat leaning against the stonewall, only to find a shower of books and parchments come flying down upon her, shoving her over sideways, down onto the cold floor.

A very red-faced Hermione scrambled over her, reaching out to grab at all her school effects before they fell and scattered across the floor, glad that at least she hadn't dropped anything truly heavy. Eh, how awkward, Hermione thought her face might very well burn. She hadn't meant to end up practically in the girl's lap.

Still pushed backwards upon her elbows, Luna leaned forward and tilted her head to a side to blink upward at girl hovering above her. It was Hermione. "Hello Hermione, how are you?"

Luna shifted to pick up one of Hermione's books from where it had fallen across the already book-covered floor, and held it up to Hermione who was still grabbing madly at her wayward belongings. Luna hadn't pictured Hermione as ever being klutzy before, she giggled.

Hermione dimpled slightly back and swiftly snatched the book, shifting all of her belongings in her arms, so she could move to kneel down besides Luna. She hurriedly started shoving things into her bag.

"Sorry about this, I didn't quite mean for... I didn't see your knee… Such a mess, you're not hurt, are you?" A bit breathless, Hermione fastened her book bag, and her face still flaming, scurried away before giving Luna a chance to reply.

Hermione stared at the ceiling, willing her cheeks to cool down. She hadn't wanted anyone to think she had purposely stopped at (and then toppled over) the girl, but she hadn't meant to loose her balance _quite_ so badly either.

Hermione gave a nervous chuckle that was a bit more high-pitched than she would ever admit. Luna had looked up from the floor to find books, whatnot, and a _girl_ practically fall into her lap, and she had _giggled_.

Oh, there was nothing terribly dignified in how that plan ended up, but her heart sure was still thumping… She had meant to just drop her stuff on the floor near Luna and then shove the note towards her while scooping her stuff back up. A reluctant grin tugged at her lips, Luna had looked quite shocked to see her end up like that though.

They hadn't even spoken since the kiss in the library. Hermione could swear to herself that Luna hadn't exactly been displeased to find herself brought, once again, so close to Hermione. Hermione felt a little warm at that thought.

Once she had finally put some more distance between Luna and herself, Hermione glanced back on the stairwell to find the lounging girl still staring at her. Hermione smiled faintly at the prone girl outlined against the darkness of the corridor behind her, and then quickly ducked out of sight, cooling her cheeks against her hands as she headed immediately back down to the crowded Great Hall for lunch.

She still needed to talk to Harry about this morning. Maybe she wouldn't tell him about _exactly how_ she ended up passing the note to Luna.

Of course, the other people in the hallway who had seen her practically fall into Luna's lap probably wouldn't spare her any dignity. There goes for being subtle.

XxXx

Luna shyly smiled back at the empty stairway where Hermione had just been, and then glanced down at the small disregarded parchment scrap Hermione had shoved into her hand.

_Room of Requirement. 8pm. _

_Bring your wand, be ready to practice._

The note then curled in on itself, disappearing into a small, hot heap of ash in her hand. Luna smiled a little to herself. She liked having the DA a couple years ago.

Funny that the coin that she still kept in her trunk (guarded against any who might try to snatch her belongings this year, thank you very much) and still checked periodically, hadn't reported another meeting though. Maybe it was broken.

She wiped her hand down across the front of her robe and went back to scribbling in her textbook, a good deal happier now than she was before getting a spewed on with Hermione's scrolls and books.

XxXx


	4. Chapter Four: In a Strengthening Current

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

_Chapter Four: In a Strengthening Current_

Author's Note: A big thank you for making me smile, to my first (if anonymous) reviewer! So whoever you are, thanks.

XxXx

At half past seven, Hermione stepped inside and glanced around the setup for tonight's meeting that the Room of Requirement provided for them. A set of four comfy looking sofas arranged closely around a low, square coffee table with a lit fireplace not far off, perfect for the admittedly administrative purpose of tonight. She and Harry had spoken a bit about what needed to get decided. Thankfully it was a short list, as she was a little cold and more than a bit tired already.

First on that list was figuring out who among the old members of the DA would be added back in. As Ron had pointed out, the revised version of the DA would have to be smaller, older, and more focused upon the war. And they would have to be willing and able to be both loyal and secretive.

So far the only renewed members were Harry, Ron, Ginny, Neville, Luna, and herself. The six from the ministry. Five of whom had helped defend Hogwarts last year during the night that Dumbledore died. Hermione remembered that frightening night too well.

She and Luna had spent what felt like forever in front of Snape's office. She had felt jittery and chilled the whole time because they were so isolated down there, with no idea what was going on above them in the castle.

She had been right to worry about what was going on above their heads, though she was almost glad now that at least it had kept Luna out of the fray for awhile, the idea of Luna in battle scared Hermione in ways she didn't want to admit.

And she still burned inside when she thought about how Snape had betrayed them, and how easily any of them could have been killed that night

But how easily they had fell for it, running inside his office to assist the unconscious Professor Flitwick. She couldn't even quite remember whether she or Luna had been the one to cast rennervate. Maybe Luna would remember.

Hermione sighed and set her things next to one of the sofas. Harry should be here soon, but she had offered to come early to set up for tonight's meeting. Really, considering it was the Room of Requirement they were using, there wasn't all that much setting up to do.

She really had just wanted a few minutes alone to collect her thoughts before everyone else (including Harry) got here. She had come here right straight from the Great Hall.

Dinner had been awful. Ron was extremely upset with her. Overly so, it seemed. And so she had finally given up and gotten Harry to promise to just ask the boy what he was still so furious about with her. While their talk this morning hadn't really gone well, she hadn't expected him to take the news so poorly. It's not like they were breaking up or never speaking to each other, they just weren't even going down that path. He had ignored her completely when she arrived late to lunch, leaving her to talk to Neville as Harry hadn't showed, but she had thought that he would cool down a bit before dinner.

He hadn't, in fact he had seemed even more upset. His only words to her during the entire course of dinner had consisted of an insult he had muttered under his breath about her 'Ravenclaw tendencies' when she had mentioned to Neville what she had found out in the library about their herbology assignment during her free period.

She had replied to Ron that considering how many classes he had skipped today, perhaps he should consider taking up some 'Ravenclaw tendencies' of his own. Things had gone drastically downhill pretty fast after that. Hopefully they would both behave themselves for DA. How embarrassing it would be to do otherwise.

At least Harry had shown up and been able to talk to her during dinner.

He had actually been bursting to tell her of what he spoken about with Professor McGonagall during their first class. She had been pleased at least to find that he had only ditched first because on his way back down to class after stopping at the dorms to send Hedwig off with a letter, he had been stopped by McGonagall to talk about the DA.

She was quite relieved when Harry had reported to her that the new headmistress was quite supportive of their secret DA meetings, and she had even offered guidance should they come across need of it. She had also reminded Harry that Professor Lupin would also be willing to provide help, should they ask him of it.

He hadn't told her anything about the letter he mailed this morning though. And when she specifically asked after it, his eyes had only hardened, and he had said it was something that both Dumbledore and McGonagall wanted him to do. Hermione wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

Either way, at least they had gotten approval and support for reinstating the DA. She hated to think it, but McGonagall seemed to be turning out much more supportive of their role in the war, whereas Dumbledore had mainly dismissed much of their efforts because of their youth.

Hermione was determined to be helpful, and with any luck not be caught unprepared like they had been so many times before.

And so, the new version of the DA would not quite resemble the meetings they had a couple years ago. While she certainly didn't want it to turn into what the Inquisitorial Squad had been during their fifth year, admittedly it wasn't just going to be the DADA practical it had originally intended to be.

Hermione and Harry (with admittedly little help from Ron) had restructured the DA last night. Hermione hoped that the added organization would facilitate their war efforts, and perhaps help them prevent people from getting killed at Hogwarts. Or least prepare them not to go without a big fight.

When a quick "_tempo_" told her that it was nearly a quarter to eight, she let herself focus upon getting out all of the paperwork, lists, and such that she had brought for tonight's meeting. She was still worried about how they were going to find a more secure way to notify every one of the meetings.

She was rather tempted to try out something marginally non-magical. Notes that incinerated themselves might work, but there was the matter of getting them to only the right people. And eh, not making a fool out of the messenger at the same time.

Telling everyone in person really only worked within a house, and only with a small number of people. It might work for now, but as such, wasn't much of a long-term option.

She rubbed her forehead, really hoping that this meeting didn't turn out to be too long. She still hadn't finished half of the projects she needed to.

XxXx

Harry burst through the door of the Room of Requirement both a little annoyed and more than a little amused by the antics of his two closest friends. Sometimes he wondered if all friendships with girls were this complex. He wasn't sure, but he didn't think so.

He threw his stuff down near the sofa next to where Hermione was sitting. He chuckled slightly to himself; Hermione would probably prefer somebody _else_ to sit next to her, so he would sit on another couch with Neville. It gave him a whole new perspective upon how she had wanted to arrange the pairs they had been thinking of setting up for DA this year.

"Have you thought anymore about the pairing? Oh, and eh, Ron knows about you and Luna. You could have told us you were getting involved with her, Hermione, and saved us all from all that tension."

Despite the too casual tone and small smile in which he told them, his words still shocked Hermione deeply enough to cause her to drop the parchments she was shuffling, and as he half expected, she colored deeply at his words.

With her eyes somewhat widened, she neatly replied, "There wasn't anything to tell. Ron has it wrong." And then she reorganized the stacks of parchment in front of her again as if to prove it.

"As for the pairings," she continued, "I want to go with what we thought up last night. Patrols, leadership, and research. And no, you're not getting out being part of the leadership pair, though I suppose you could trade Ron or Ginny for Neville if you so chose."

Harry only smiled at how quickly Hermione had firmly set them back on the more comfortable topic. Of course she would eventually realize that Ron only knew about her and Luna because only all of the upper years were talking about it. He would of course have to find out later exactly what was or was not going on between Hermione and the girl she had selected for her own partner. Her excuse of how as a Ravenclaw, Luna was a natural choice, be damned.

Of course the rumors circulating around the school did lend new credit of her assertion that that vague girl took direction well enough. Needless to say, it wasn't as if, even if they were still speaking, Ron would be any help in the library.

And both Ron and Ginny were much better suited for the action and possible battle that might happen on patrol.

He snickered, and if everyone thought they were dating, nobody would blink twice about Hermione and Luna spending tons of time together with their heads bent over their books. He couldn't wait to point that out to Hermione.

His smile deepened a tad as he digressed to wonder if he might perhaps pretend to be a little piqued that Hermione stolen away his 'date' for Slughorn's party last year.

Though, radish earrings and academic differences aside, Hermione and Luna were rather well suited for each other when he actually stopped to think about it. Better than Hermione and Ron to be honest. Better than Ron and Lavender, certainly.

He could see them arguing over Wrackspurts already (well he actually _had_ seen that already), and wondered if Luna was still giving Hermione grief over her supposed rigickrop. It was almost time for the Halloween feast too, though nothing had yet been said by McGonagall about a dance. He wouldn't be upset without a dance, as he had nobody whom he could rightly ask.

Turning his mind back to the DA, he answered, "No I like the idea of having Neville as a partner. As Headboy, I think he would be a good pick."

"And he works better with you than he would with Ron or Ginny on patrol."

"Yes, that he does. But I think that the two of them will do fine in charge of patrols, don't you?" Hermione nodded she could already see Ron moving everybody around the castle grounds like so many pieces on a chessboard, as Harry continued on, "Have you added any to your list of topics that we should be studying?"

"I haven't added anything beyond working on nonverbal spells, though the sixth years haven't covered that yet, even in class." Hermione continued reading one of her lists, before indicating that that was basically it. "But I do think we ought to have our eh, officers meet every so often in a separate meeting, you know? Just to keep on top of problems and developments and what not."

Harry stilled. Try as he did over the summer, he still wasn't very good at nonverbal spells. That was something he certainly couldn't teach anybody about. "Maybe we could get Professor Lupin to give us extra help in that. But yeah separate planning meetings for the officers would be a good idea, this DA is going to need to be better run than it was last time."

Hermione nodded along, "Especially perhaps with having him focus on nonverbal execution in a battle sort of situation."

At the sound of the door opening they both straightened up for the start of the official meeting, and Harry beckoned Neville over to sit with him. A few moments later, the room filled with the entrance of the final three members of the DA officers.

XxXx

Luna squirmed a bit in her seat, earning herself a tired little frown and a stilling hand upon her ankle from Hermione who was all so diligently recording everything that was said into notes with an automatic quill. Luna had spent the first half of the meeting curled up against her corner of the sofa trying really hard to pay attention to what everyone was saying.

Luna smiled dreamily back at Hermione, and Hermione guiltily snatched her hand back away.

All she had really gotten out of it was that she was getting to do research with Hermione, and that she would soon have a valid excuse to wander about the castle and grounds at night, though they were to limit themselves to inside the castle after curfew. And they weren't to tell any of the general student population that the DA was back. Subterfuge, Luna decided, was great fun.

She had hoped that they would get a chance to do or learn something today, but the closest they had come to that was talk about what subjects they wanted to work on next. Shielding and reflecting spells were a popular option, as were nonverbal spells.

She had amused herself for a good fifteen minutes by nonverbally trying to get Hermione's hair to rebel against that cute little plait she had had it twisted into ever so neatly since breakfast this morning.

She thought she might have gotten one curl free, but eventually had to give it up as a general failure, and ended up staring at Neville nervously looking between Harry and a rather red-faced Ron. Ron didn't seem very happy.

Ron was usually some shade of red or another it seemed to Luna, maybe he needed a hat. But he certainly seemed more upset this evening than usual when they had come into the room, she twirled a twist of her own straw-like hair until it looked a bit like one of Hermione's curls, but he hadn't wanted to share what was wrong.

Indeed he had actually gotten a bit more upset after that, so Luna had quickly retreated to the seat that Hermione indicated was for her.

She wondered why Neville was so nervous. She thought he was a marvelous choice for partnering Harry. Maybe Ron had wanted to partner with Harry instead of partnering with Ginny? Luna wasn't so sure Ron would do well as one of their leaders. He could be quite unkind sometimes.

That could maybe be a bonus for a patroller though. Ron liked to jinx people from what Luna knew. Ginny did too, but Luna still thought that Ginny was usually very kind though, and so she rather thought that she liked the girl.

Luna glanced over where Hermione was correcting something that the automatic quill had gotten wrong. To be truthful, Hermione could sometimes be unkind. Luna cocked her head to the side to better regard the girl sitting besides her.

Sometimes before the DA, when Hermione and Luna became like friends, Hermione would say cool and hurtful things about Luna's father and she could remember later sometimes crying herself to sleep over it.

Hermione was certainly one of the more socially reticent of the Gryffindors among Luna's acquaintance. She didn't seem to want or care to make casual friends as easily as some of the others in her house.

Luna wasn't sure, but from what little Hermione had said, she didn't think she got along well with her dorm-mates. She was also pretty sure that they might have made her cry once or twice, but again she wasn't sure.

It wouldn't have surprised her; Luna had never really liked either Lavender or really Parvati all that much. And she wouldn't have been surprised to hear that in return either of those silly girls had found themselves on the wrong side of Hermione's wit.

Hermione's tongue was rather sharp like that. But as they had worked together, Hermione's rather abrupt manner grew on Luna. Luna had been pleased to find that they were fairly alike in some ways as well because Hermione was ever so dreadfully smart, and Luna rather enjoyed the conversations they sometimes found themselves in.

She was glad that she'd probably be spending more time in company with the other girl.

They both liked to read about novel and interesting things for one, though the subject matter kind of differed. And they were both fond of reading about transfiguration. Luna didn't think she liked potions as much as Hermione did though.

During Luna's forth year, Hermione stopped being so callous in response to Luna's remarks about magical creatures and her father's paper, and that helped as well. But really, Luna finally decided that she couldn't dislike Hermione because the girl was simply being honest. And that was in the end, what one of the things that Luna liked more and more about the other girl. She didn't say nice things to your face one day, and then do something mean later on just because other people were around.

Hermione had been a bit of a riddle actually. A lot of the older Ravenclaws had been angry that Hermione was in Gryffindor instead of in Ravenclaw where they said that the top girl in their year always belonged. Luna had to agree that at the very least Hermione was certainly incredibly smart.

And so she too had wondered what it was about her that made her fit in with the Gryffindors so well. Because she obviously did, as she seemed to understand Ron and Ginny, when they made no sense at all to Luna. And Luna had known them to one extent or another for most of her life.

Neville and Harry made sense to Luna some of the time. Usually in the way that Hannah Abbott or Susan Bones made sense to her last year.

But Hermione definitely seemed to relate to her fellow Gryffindors on a different level, even if she complained a lot about their study habits. Luna smiled to herself, she had finally decided that certain escapades (usually led by Harry against You-Know-Who) aside, the reason that Hermione was in Gryffindor wasn't necessarily because of her tendency to get tied up in conflict (which is what the older Ravenclaws had thought).

Luna thought that it was rather because Hermione had a tendency to say _exactly_ what she thought, not because she thought anyone wanted to know, but because she thought they _didn't_ want to hear it but needed it anyway. Hermione could be rather rash sometimes about it, but that seemed to be another Gryffindor tendency too.

Luna had to admit that she also sometimes said things that other people didn't always appreciate. Only, she usually didn't know that they hadn't wanted to hear until after she saw the looks on their faces, and she realized that perhaps that wasn't quite what she was expected to say.

And besides, what Luna really liked about Hermione was that she usually had really good intentions. Luna had certainly heard a plethora of reasons why Hermione didn't believe in wrackspurts or digturls or apparently even rigickrops, but Hermione had certainly never called her Loony Lovegood. Ron called her Loony Lovegood, though he didn't think that she knew.

And Hermione was a good kisser. But that probably had more to do with the very much Ravenclaw-like parts of her.

XxXx

Ginny had been waiting for the last half an hour for the meeting to get interesting. It hadn't as of yet. She figured they had already pretty much lost a couple people to their own distractible natures. Namely Luna and Ron. Luna because well, she was Luna, and being herself she had alternated tonight between staring at Hermione and staring at the ceiling.

Ginny agreed with Hermione on a couple things. The first being that Ron would certainly make _anyone_ a horrible boyfriend. And the second one being that it was a good thing that that Luna was smart because with how dreamy and spacey she tended to be, she'd fail right out of Hogwarts otherwise.

Ginny sometimes wondered if Luna's mother had still been alive, if Luna would have grown up to be more like a normal girl. Ginny kind of remembered the woman; after all Luna and Ginny had grown up near each other.

After a little thought, Ginny had finally had to decide that she couldn't really know if Luna would have turned out any different. Anyway, both of her parents had always seemed a lot too much like Luna to Ginny.

Ron on the other hand, had no excuse to be so caught up in his own stupid romance (or lack thereof from what Ginny could tell) that he couldn't stop glowering at either Luna or Hermione.

Though she really couldn't tell what Hermione saw in Luna either, as eh, sweet as the girl might be, she's so spacey that Ginny wouldn't be surprised if the girl wandered away right in the middle of a good snog. But the girl was certainly attractive enough.

Though why Ron was upset with Neville was beyond Ginny. She certainly didn't see why anyone would want to be captain of quidditch team _and_ Headboy. Though how Neville had made Headboy, when he hadn't even been a prefect, was beyond Ginny too.

But she thought that being Headboy suited Neville. He certainly seemed to be living up to his new role in the school. With any luck Ron might get over himself in a couple days. Or she would just have to _help_ him out of it. Might be fun. She could always consult with the twins. She shrugged a cramp out of her shoulders.

Just then Harry introduced the idea of adding more members to the group, "I'm sure everyone here noticed that there are far fewer people here than there were a couple of years ago. I'd like to be open to the idea of adding a few more eh, trustworthy people. We can't add them quite yet, as Hermione isn't quite done drafting the new contract for this year. But I don't have to tell any of you the importance of keeping all of this quiet. The less people know about us and the existence of this club, the better job we can do protecting the school."

As Hermione took a moment to interrupt to say that the contracts would be ready to sign by the next meeting (the date and time of which they would decide upon tonight), Ginny reflected upon how changed Harry looked. He certainly seemed more withdrawn and looked even more grown up.

He hadn't grown any taller, the boy would probably always be short, but the hesitant nature she was used to seeing was gone. It was replaced with this serious sort of reserved fellow, who spent lots of time writing Merlin-knew-who and researching who-knows-what in the library.

Hermione probably has never had so much Gryffindor company in the library during her whole time at school (excepting maybe exams time).

Ginny looked over at where Hermione was still stealing glances at Luna as the girl lazily twirled her own hair about one of her fingers. Perhaps Hermione hadn't exactly been lonely all this time, but even she had noticed and remarked once or twice upon how she sometimes missed the Harry they knew from when they were younger.

He was probably squished by the weight of having to be the _Chosen One_ of the war Ginny knew, but she was still sad to see the sweet boy she had known so totally hidden under all the responsibility Harry now had taken on.

Even though she had gone back to Dean, Harry would always be Harry to her. She glanced at the seething body besides her, if only Ron would grow up a little like everyone else had.

She rather wished that Harry still played quidditch, though perhaps not as fervently as Ron did; the Harry she knew still existed sometimes when they were up in the air. Maybe she could talk him into um, doing some airborne scouts of the castle grounds with her or Ron.

Everyone would after all, get to take part in the patrols. And she and Ron got to arrange them. She would see to it that Harry got a chance to lighten up once in a while.

Back to the matter at hand, Ginny quickly volunteered her boyfriend and Seamus Finnigan as possible additions. She smiled to see heads nodding around the room, and they were the first on the list of people to add.

Glancing over at where Hermione was shuffling through her parchments, she was not surprised and somewhat amused that Hermione had made a list of some sort and was rummaging about to find it.

While Hermione was avidly looking about for her list, Neville offered up the Patil sisters, which Ginny vocally agreed to, and Ron added that Lavender Brown would also be a good addition.

Hermione had scrunched her forehead up in thought, and seemed particularly hesitant when Luna spoke up at once to oppose the idea. Ginny wasn't much surprised to see that Luna didn't like the girl; she wasn't often kind to her.

Ron muttered something dark under his breath but Ginny elbowed him hard, and then pretended not to hear him swear and hiss in pain.

Ron spoke up again as to how he thought Lavender would be an excellent addition to the group. And as several other people got to include the people they were dating, he looked over at Luna and Hermione at this rather than Ginny, he thought Lavender would be no worse addition than anybody else.

Hermione's lips tightened at that but she didn't say anything.

Finally after some silence, Harry dryly admitted that the girl would be trustworthy enough (though as he said that, he did look over at Hermione's stack of parchment where Ginny could just bet was the rough draft of the magical contract that Hermione was making for them all).

Neville also added that as they already planning to ask Parvati, it would be good to include her best friend as well. That way she wouldn't be suspicious as to where every other seventh year Gryffindor was going when they had meetings.

Ron finally looked happy, and after some amount of silence, it was clear that nobody had any more names to add.

It was soon agreed that Ron would ask Lavender and Parvati. Ginny would ask Dean and Seamus. And as the only Ravenclaw here, Luna would ask Padma. She seemed hesitant about volunteering, but seemed willing enough to go along when Hermione asked if she would mind inviting the girl.

Hermione looked down at her list (which Ginny found out had ended up being a timetable of all of their upcoming quizzes and due dates for essays for the next couple weeks) and asked about when in the next week or so everyone would like to meet.

She also reminded the partners to meet with each other to plan their own parts so that they could present their ideas and schedules to the whole in the next meeting.

Ginny listened with half an ear as they decided that this Saturday night would be a good time for the next general meeting, and then turned to Ron to suggest going over patrol routes and ideas after quidditch practice tomorrow.

She left soon afterwards to go find Dean, but didn't miss the dark look Ron shot at Hermione and Luna as they lingered behind the group whispering to each other, before he hurried on behind her on her way over to the portrait hole. Merlin her brother could be obnoxious.


	5. Chapter Five: Lamb Amongst Such Fiends

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

_Chapter Five: Lamb Amongst Such Fiends _

Author's Note: Thanks to Moogles, Kat, Spatula, and all my other encouraging reviewers, I'm glad you all are enjoying the story.

XxXx

It hadn't been raining earlier that evening. At least not in the Room of Requirement. Luna wondered, briefly, if she asked the room to make it rain, would it? She'd have to test that out later.

Luna stood upright lost in the gleaming downpour upon a dark path, the howling dances of midnight's magic screaming its strange rapture all around her. Her arms reached out by their own accord this time away from the beaconing moonlight streaming madly down from between the ghoulish clouds above her as she stood deeply still against the shivering, dripping chill creeping towards her from the depths of the forest. It felt like the entire forest was watching her.

It was time. Pushing her cumbersome hood away from her sodden hair she turned her gaze deeper into the forest's darkness. She could barely see the trees and brush through the shower. Perhaps she should have brought her wand. Though a drying spell wouldn't have lasted long in this. And any light she might summon would stand weak against the hungry, frenzied darkness.

Her wand was nothing more than the mere magic of a half-grown witch. Here, half-wild like this, she was just another creature in the forest. But such deception couldn't last long. She looked around desperately; she needed to find the right bush.

Turning her back on the dark shadows frolicking in the night's torrent, she centered her thoughts and tracked her memories of this place until she was standing frozen behind a lone set of bushes off to the side of the portentous, decrepit oak tree that had as of late been patronizing her dreams with its looming branches. It belonged here no more than she did.

But she focused not on the lifeless swinging of the branches above her tonight, and instead bent over double fishing something hot and throbbing out from among the leaves sheltered by the low brush, before scurrying back towards the borders of the forest. Her twice-discarded lake pebbles now safely hidden in her cloak's pocket.

XxXx

Neville stood looking east out of his dormitory window watching the rain smash up against the glass. His thoughts were too unsettled for sleep. He hated rain, and tonight he was up late, stuck with only it for company. Harry Potter wanted to lead the DA with _him. _Granted, there were four other officers of the club, but each of them had other roles. He would have thought that Harry would rather have Hermione or Ron lead with him, they were much closer to Harry, and had proven themselves to be so brave and done much more to aid Harry in his struggles than he had ever done.

But it was indeed he, Neville Longbottom who as a child had been worried he would turn out to be squib, who was to lead the DA. Well, help lead anyway. Though exactly how, he wasn't sure.

It was but a quarter past midnight (Gran would surely say he ought to be in bed by now), and he paused in his regard of the darkened, rain-pelted grounds when he saw a small, cloaked girl with glowing, long blonde hair dash out madly from the cover of the gloomy forest. He groaned in disbelief. He knew that lone, crazy girl. Who else would visit the forest during a night storm?

He had hoped that perhaps Hermione's sensible influence would help settle the girl, but apparently the girl hadn't, eh, quite rubbed off yet on the absentminded Ravenclaw. What was she doing in the forest, and in this weather to boot?

He had watched her tonight while he sat practically numb with nerves by Harry's side, playing dreamily, twirling one of those pale tresses about a slim finger during the DA meeting. She always seemed so wistful to Neville, like she didn't quite live in the same plane of existence as he did. He really didn't know where she got some of her ideas, but he read _The Quibbler _and he could usually see where the fodder for Luna's beliefs came from.

But what would Luna want in the forest? What business could possibly direct her away from the castle into its dangerous terrain in the middle of the night? He stilled suddenly, what if she hadn't wanted anything in the forest? What if she had been taken there against her will, and her mad dash back to the castle was actually her frantic escape?

He searched the school's grounds again, imploring his eyes to make out every hidden detail, but the girl had scurried as quickly out of sight again as she had appeared. He peeked at the shadowy forest one more time, at least it seemed that no one had followed her out of its dark confines.

He quickly grabbed his own cloak and awkwardly swung it over his pajamas. Luna was running awfully fast, maybe something really was wrong. He ought to catch up with her, and make sure she was all right. It would be the Gryffindor thing to do.

Afterall, he knew her, counted her as a friend. Even if she had gone in there willingly, something could still be wrong, or be about to go wrong. She had an alarming tendency to put a rather low priority upon safety when it came to her projects, often disregarding the wellbeing of her health completely.

The absentminded girl was certainly up to something herself or caught up in the affairs of others. He grabbed his own cloak and headed for the stairs.

XxXx

Hermione glanced up from her fireside chair in the Commons Room to find Neville, in a cloak and pajamas, come barreling down the stairs like he had been caught trying to go up into the girls' dormitory. He didn't even see her sitting, with her own cloak blanketed across her knees, alone in the flickering light as he rushed by towards the portrait hole, until she called out to ask him where he was going so noisily after curfew.

"I just saw Luna come running out of the Forbidden Forest. I was just about to go see if she was alright." He threw the words at her over his should before turned swiftly back to the portrait hole as Hermione rolled her eyes, although her face betrayed her sudden worry in its paleness, and she quickly jumped up, leaving her books and revisions scattered in the corner behind her. Hermione was certain that Luna hadn't mentioned any plans to go into the forest tonight after the DA. She certainly didn't ask for help, but Hermione refused to let herself feel hurt for that.

"I suppose we better go fast if we expect to reach her before she makes it down to the Ravenclaw Commons Room", Hermione smiled at Neville and latched her cloak around her neck. He sighed, resigned, and motioned for her to go first as they hurried away from Gryffindor Tower.

XxXx

While Hermione and Neville were anxiously making their way done the staircase from the seventh floor, Luna was by no means heading eagerly back down towards her Commons' Room. People tended to congregate in there for marathon studying bouts which seemed to last all night, and allowed for little privacy. She was heading up instead for her cozy little alcove on the fifth floor.

Her hair was heavy and discomfortingly _wet_. She had dismissed the angry rain and wind in the forest in her excitement for the mutated pebbles, but inside the calm and stillness of the castle she could certainly feel that her hair hung in tangled; messy bunches sticking out in all directions from her head. It was even dripping water droplets onto her equally damp cloak. She only vaguely remembered it raining among all her other concerns in the forest.

How strange, and now she was a mess. Hanging her head off to one side, she tried to wring the excess water out of her long hair as she hurried up the spiraling staircase. She distractedly realized that she really ought to hurry now; she had no excuse to be out this late after curfew, and even less for being outside. Perhaps nobody would notice her wet hair. Or the wet shoeprints. Or the, eh, twig she just found in her hair. Better perhaps, to hurry.

She was barreling around the last bend in the staircase before the landing on the fifth floor and the safety of her alcove when she ran into something warm, and soft, and stirringly familiar. Feelings similar to those she felt in the forest rang heated peals in her chest. The 'umph' she heard was also familiar, and so was the blush she saw stealing across Hermione's face as the two of them braced each other against the cold stone wall to keep from falling into a mad heap upon the floor. Luna was rather pleased to note that this time, Hermione was the one who found herself pinned closely up against the wall. No escape this time. She shyly offered the girl a rather wet smile, "hello."

"Luna you're soaked right on through! Are you ok?" Hermione picked up a wet wisp of hair that was stuck to Luna's collar to twirl around her finger; she pursed her lips at Luna when small droplets of water streamed down her hand and into her shirtsleeve.

Luna blinked slowly back up at Hermione and sniffled, "I tried to wring it out. Then I ran into you." She wrapped her arms a little securer about the taller girl. "Perfectly fine, thank you."

Hermione stared down at where she could see more droplets clinging to the eyelashes surrounding the girl's large, darkened sleet-colored eyes, she was rather too tired to be trying to get a straight answer out of Luna right now. And due to whatever she had been doing in the forest, Luna was _very _keyed up. "Did you indeed?" God, she was still holding onto the girl. Hermione knew better, but she didn't let go, not quite yet. The silly chit could have gotten herself hurt or worse out there in the forest chasing any one of her mad schemes.

Hermione really hoped there wasn't any mention of wrackspurts or rigickrops in Luna's explanation of tonight's foray into the dark, besieged forest.

Maybe it would be enough if Hermione could just ensure that the girl made it safely back to her dorm. And stayed there safe, for the rest of the night. She was really tempted to pull out Harry's Marauder's Map and watch to see that she stayed there, but she really didn't want to wake and explain any of this to Harry. That could wait until the morrow. Or even the next afternoon.

As long as Luna wasn't planning on going back out there into the forest tonight, minus a wand too by the looks of it, she could probably try to get the full story out of the girl tomorrow when they were to meet in the library. That idea was sounding more and more appealing, and besides Hermione could feel the girl shiver against her in her wet clothes.

And Hermione was pretty certain that the front of her own cloak, which had stayed safely in the castle this whole evening, was also quite damp.

Neville shuffled his feet behind the two girls who still hadn't let go from colliding into one another. For someone who swore nothing was going on between them, Hermione sure liked to touch this girl. He awkwardly looked back towards the ascending staircase behind them; he really ought to just leave. Hermione, as usual, had everything well under control. And she looked quite happy to handle everything herself as she glanced over Luna's head to smile at him and indicate that he could go on; she'd of course take care of it.

Hermione, of course, was good at taking charge of things. Like potions, for instance, or study sessions. He wondered lightly as he wandered back up to the seventh floor why Hermione hadn't accepted the Headgirl position. He had assumed over the summer that she would take it and had been looking forward to being Headboy and Headgirl with her.

She said she had ended up refusing it because she just couldn't see herself being able to give it the time it deserved. And during the summer, she had said they weren't even sure who, if anyone, would be returning to Hogwarts this year, it was a surprise and a huge relief that Professor McGonagall had managed to keep the school open at all. He looked down behind him at where the two girls were still conversing quietly in each other's arms.

Whether she wanted to deal with anything else on her plate or not, by the looks of it, she would be taking on Luna and all of the oddness and fathomless beliefs that entailed. Neville smiled, Luna was a very sweet girl, he was fond of her, but she had always seemed rather hung up on Hermione. Especially when Hermione disagreed everything that came out of Luna's mouth. Hermione was the only girl he had ever really seen Luna truly argue with, everyone else who scoffed at her ideas usually got dismissed as being too slow as soon as they were even considered. But she had certainly always seemed to care about what Hermione thought.

And then she certainly liked to argue with Hermione; at least she did after Hermione dropped some of the jaggedness of her remarks around Luna. When the two of them weren't taking turns glancing or staring at each other. But Neville was pretty sure that was a more recent development.

They were both rather lonely in the same way, Neville reflected as well. He knew that sometimes Luna had only really put up with his own rather troll like remarks and opinions because she valued him more as a friend rather than a confidant or collaborator. And he knew she certainly wasn't about to turn towards her own house for companionship, though he didn't know why nobody there seemed to like her.

Hermione might not say so, but he been noticing long before their current fight that Hermione was growing away from Ron in much the same way, looking for the same things as Luna. And while Harry and Hermione still seemed close, Harry had so many things going on, what with the war, and he sometimes saw the way that Hermione looked at how close Parvati and Lavender were. Hermione was certainly studying more and more by herself as of late. She wasn't helping out her classmates as much either, she didn't have the time.

Hermione didn't seem to have any close girl friends, and though he hadn't known that Hermione liked girls like that, he _had_ seen Luna and Hermione getting closer and closer to each other all of last year. They certainly had got on with each other swimmingly at times. He supposed that Hermione probably thought it really nice to have someone to talk to that could at least keep up with her. Even if that someone had a tendency to say the exact sort of outrageous thing that incensed Hermione up into an academic tantrum. But then, Hermione was very fond of her little bookish tantrums.

Because Luna was definitely smart too in her own vague kind of way, perhaps really the _only_ current student in the castle who stood a chance at competing with Hermione when she started talking theory at the rather high and very subjective level that she currently favored. Well, except Neville had to admit, he often didn't know what level exactly Luna was operating on most of the time; the girl did say the strangest things. But Hermione certainly seemed to be into that lately.

XxXx

Hermione gave herself a few more minutes to breathe in the wild, slick scent of Luna's hair before she finally pushed lightly against the girl to place some much needed space between them. Odd, how no matter how much she made herself promise to leave the younger girl alone, Hermione always found herself being drawn in. Well, she really shouldn't.

Just because Luna was ever so very tempting, especially when her reflecting, starish eyes were regarding up at her so trustingly, it didn't mean that Hermione had anymore room in her life for a girlfriend than she did for a boyfriend. Even though, right now with Luna smiling wistfully amidst all her shivering, Hermione wanted one- this particular one- so very badly. But she really shouldn't.

But Hermione couldn't help returning her smile just a little bit, and motioning softly to where the staircase dipped downward, asked, "If I walk you down, do you think you could stay in Ravenclaw territory until at least morning?" It was only hours off after all.

Luna's smile deepened a bit, and shying stealing the hand that Hermione really hadn't meant to offer her, cheerfully replied softly, "No, but I wouldn't mind walking down there with you. I would even escort you back up here. And then we could continue on to your Gryffindor 'territory' where we could repeat the whole thing again, if it pleased you…" Luna's eyes were as heated as her other hand when she brought it up to flirtily play with Hermione's hair. Hermione found that she really was having trouble finding her breath.

"We could go all over the castle. You used to wander the castle after dark. We could go back to the forest, it's quite wild tonight, but I wouldn't be as scared if we were both there. Wouldn't it be fun?" She was still fiddling with Hermione's hair as she tipped her head up to whisper in Hermione's ear. Hermione forgot to breath.

Ignoring the part of herself that told her that she really ought to pull away now before she became any more entranced, Hermione instead used her captive hand to pull the storm-fevered girl closer to her, finally whispering, "Why won't you stay where you're safe?"

Luna shook her head, and Hermione felt a wet and cold reminder against her flushed neck of how cold the slender girl must really be under her strange fever, before distractedly replying that she usually didn't spend nights within the realms of Ravenclaw.

Hermione stopped, a coulple odd sightings of the girl suddenly coming back to life within her addled mind, but she was still a bit uncertain what the girl could possibly be doing there all night long. And when would the girl sleep? A dry, somewhat amused part of herself answered her own question promptly: at breakfast, at class, or at every other place during the day that people had seen the dreamy girl doze off at one time or another.

Luna still looked rather shy at Hermione's previous question. Hermione wanted her to be safe? In Ravenclaw territory? She of course didn't know that ravens could willingly eat their young; she'd have no reason to really. The smartest thing that Hermione had ever done was to get sorted elsewhere. And maybe kiss her in the library. It was really the best comeback she'd had Hermione use in an argument yet.

Luna shivered again. It was odd really, having the heat pool in the center of you when you still couldn't quite feel your toes for their numbness. In a small voice she admitted to Hermione, "I would rather not go back there tonight," the girl bit her lip and sniffled a bit, "I really wouldn't. I'd rather be anywhere else." Apparently including the Forbidden Forest, thought Hermione.

And it was then that Hermione found that she was indeed still very capable of rash, stupid things when it came to her dealings with Luna. Why did all of her best, perfectly laid out plans go so quickly out the window? She would have to deal with a lot of aftermath later; but she was exhausted, and tired of watching Luna shivering.

They were closer to it than the Ravenclaw dormitory anyway. And nowhere else would she be able to keep a better eye on Luna's wayward tendencies. And she could make sure that the girl warmed up properly so that she didn't catch a cold. And most of the other girls weren't really speaking to her anyway. And most importantly, Luna was certainly no boy to be denied access up the stairs. It was the best solution available really, when you took the time to think about it.

She smiled a bit at her trembling and numb companion, pulled lightly on their joined hands and whispered, "Come on then, I can loan you some pajamas." And then promptly blushed at the wicked smile that she got in reply.

XxXx


	6. Chapter Six: A Shadowed Mirror of Folly

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

_Chapter Six: A Shadowed Mirror of Folly_

Author's Note: Thanks to all of my wonderful reviewers including my anon reviewers pdli and Kat. Thanks for liking the story, and telling me so. :)

XxXx

Luna woke up to the feeling that she had fallen asleep and forgotten to do something, but she was soon distracted by the fact that sometime after coming out of the forest she had ended up sleeping in Hermione's bed.

She was pretty sure this wasn't where many other girls had ended up when Hermione had gotten upset with them (and she vaguely did remember Hermione seeming upset about something). But then, most of the other Ravenclaw girls didn't really like Hermione all that much; she made them look bad.

Luna smiled; she didn't really mind Hermione making her look bad. She was almost two years older after all, so they weren't really all that comparable.

Still, sleeping with someone was important right? The other Ravenclaw girls giggled over it all the time. While they might not talk about it with Luna, she knew they were always discussing who was sleeping with who, or who ever so very much wanted to.

Luna felt sort of happy. A lot of the girls dated the people they slept with.

Well, Luna had finally slept, curled up and warm, by Hermione's side, and it had been nice and she really wanted to do it again.

And even better, Hermione had _asked_ her to sleep with her. That meant that Hermione liked her, right?

Luna looked up at the canopy of Hermione's bed, her mouth slightly open in wonder. Did that mean that Hermione was now her girlfriend? They had slept together after all. Luna wasn't sure. But wouldn't it be neat if it were true? Luna hadn't ever had a girlfriend before. Maybe she would just pretend anyway, it would be fun. They could hold hands.

She hadn't ever actually dated anybody before, not unless you counted that time she went as friends to Slughorn's party with Harry. But she didn't want to date Harry. She wanted to date Hermione.

She hoped this meant that she and Hermione really were dating. She'd have to ask her about it later. Right now, she grimaced; she really needed to get going.

Too bad Hermione wasn't awake yet. Oh well, she could always ask her later. Like at breakfast. Or at dinner. Or tomorrow while they were studying for the DA.

Maybe this means that Hermione _would_ now want to hold Luna's hand sometimes, Luna thought that would be rather sweet. She couldn't wait. She rather thought she would like having a girlfriend. They could even study together more now.

Granted they already studied together now, but Luna was sure it would be different, probably a lot cooler, if she was Hermione's girlfriend.

She looked shyly across the pillow at Hermione, who was still sleeping with some of Luna's long hair wrapped tightly around her hand. Luna vaguely remembered Hermione playing with it last night as she waited for sleep to come claim her. Even though the other girl tended to tangle it up, she rather liked Hermione's hand in her hair.

But it was really time to go.

She didn't feel like stealing herself out from under Hermione's arm and out onto where the floor still held its predawn chill. But she did, uncurling the sleeping girl's claim upon her hair and shrugging out of Hermione's pajamas in return.

Luna didn't bother perform the badly needed drying spell upon her clothes from last night, she didn't want to risk the slight hum she could just hear coming from one of her pockets. She smiled; she would have to find a lot more lake-stones to take to the forest.

Hermione didn't wake up; instead she just curled up into the space that Luna had vacated. Looking down at Hermione, the worries she usually wore across her face in daylight erased by dreams and sleep, Luna couldn't wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow was Thursday, and they were supposed to do some research together in the library for the DA.

Maybe Hermione would hold her hand. Luna scribbled a quick note telling Hermione that she'd left before Hermione awoke and a footnote to say that she thought that Hermione looked rather sweet with her hair statically splayed out across the pillow. That was properly romantic, hopefully Hermione would like it.

She quickly stuck the note in Hermione's hand. Smiling still, Luna turned away from the bed and ducked quietly out of the room.

Down the stairs, across the strangely deserted Gryffindor Commons' Room (when did these people study?), and Luna was quickly out of Gryffindor Tower and heading down to stop at the fifth floor before returning to the bottom of the castle to get ready for breakfast.

XxXx

Harry spent the night after the DA meeting madly combing through old letters received during the summer, looking for one only mildly scathing and offhand comment about nonverbal spells. At least he had thought the comment was about nonverbals, but considering that all the letters were written in a purposely vague and nondescript manner for security purposes, he wasn't always sure what was meant in them. It was frustrating.

Granted definitely not less worse than being completely stalled over the horcruxes, at least with the DA they were doing something. Making progress,

Almost as frustrating though, as the complete lack of help Lupin had given when asked about performing nonverbal spells. He was sure that Lupin had tried to be helpful, but all he had really done was rephrase what the text had said on the subject. Less than helpful. Hermione had already gathered all of that information. They needed more experience-oriented advice, not theory.

Lupin though, had been too busy to sit down and really discuss it. Lupin had been busy all summer, and it was only worse now that school was in session and he was teaching.

Harry knew of one Order member who wasn't teaching and wasn't doing any eh, official Order work though, but it grated his teeth to ask him for help. But he was going to do it anyway. He must be halfway to actually _liking_ pain, from all the letters he sent to the bastard. Well, was it truly possible to be in mental pain?

Harry shrugged at his own bleary thoughts and went back to rifling through old letters.

He finally fell asleep sometime around two or three in the morning after eventually finding that particular comment from a letter dated sometime back in July, and hastily penning a rather sleep-deprived request for further information.

He was afraid he'd have to rewrite it in the morning. His correspondent after all, had sent his last letter back through McGonagall with bright, blood-red _grammar_ corrections scribbled all over it.

It was stupid; he could barely read the red scratch for one thing. And for the second, the old witch had actually chuckled at it as she had revealed the letter's true contents from under the security spell. At least the letter's reply had also been included.

Harry didn't even want to know how she was getting the letters into and out of Hogwarts. Like him, she was merely following Dumbledore's final orders pertaining to Harry's extracurricular education.

Unfortunately, so was the other person implicated in Dumbledore's final contribution to his pensive. Going into that pensive was really the worse incident of Harry's entire summer. And there were several to choose from.

Harry could swear that even with hundreds of kilometers between them, that man still made him get hot under the collar. Harry liked it better when he had been allowed to just completely _hate_ the man, instead of needing him for all sorts of highly-important-war-things.

Even without his solid stance as a spy, the man simply had too much knowledge about truly horrific things, not to be useful. And now Harry knew from first hand experience how much groveling it took to get that man to help him again.

Harry fell asleep to the sounds of his own nightmares coming to claim him, it seemed that awake or not, he could never get away from death eaters.

Harry, unable to stay asleep for long, was out of bed again well before breakfast. The letter needed to get sent off before anybody was likely to be awake to notice him, anyway.

Once dressed, he decided to forego actually doing anything actually more time consuming than proofreading the letter for clarity. If Snape wanted to complain about his dismal attempts at spelling or sentence composition… then perhaps the glee that Snape surely felt belittling Harry Potter would spur him to send his reply a little faster. One could hope for small favors, anyway.

Harry headed to McGonagall's office; hoping that the older witch would be about to pass his letter on to wherever its intended recipient was living. God, he hated all this.

What good was Snape when the only help he had really offered thus far was a dead man's name when consulted about R.A.B? What good was that? Not even Hermione had been able to make any use of it.

Harry liked to ignore Snape's other activities. They made him feel strangely anxious. He didn't want anybody more to die.

But he still burned as he handed over his request for advice to the headmistress. It was so stupid of him to think Snape would give a straight answer to this. Snape would, in all likeliness, get so caught up in what he would find as a blatant invitation to insult Harry at his whim, that he would forget to include the information or advice.

Harry really wasn't looking forward to reading his reply.

He should have just put up with what little help that Lupin could provide.

He quietly thanked McGonagall for taking the letter and headed quickly out of the newly redecorated headmistress' office. He already had a headache coming on, and he still had to finish proofing the potion's essay that was due later today.

Sometimes, Harry thought his decision to come back to Hogwarts this year was silly. He should be out destroying the horcruxes. Or he should be researching for them.

Instead of doing anything of _use_, he was heading down to breakfast and the horrid headlines of _The Daily Prophet_, and then going obediently straight to his first class. He didn't understand how in a time of war, he could feel both such frustration and such desolate boredom.

He was exhausted with all this horrid waiting.

He needed to be _doing something _already. Hell, even Snape was doing something. Harry scowled; he didn't need to be thinking about that so early in the morning.

XxXx

Hermione awoke to find the first rays of dawn just making their way into her window, and her bed empty, any traces of its other occupant long dissipated. She frowned slightly to herself becoming more and more annoyed as she became more awake. The girl had just _left_.

Hermione had been so upset, so _concerned_ over that silly little girl… and Luna hadn't even thought twice over all that Hermione was risking by having her up here!

Hermione ignored how little consideration she had given the same matter last night; it wasn't nearly the same thing.

This was the part of Luna that Hermione had always seethed over. Rules, especially the fair and logical ones, existed for everyone's' benefit. Hermione had actually _broken_ the one about not having eh; romantic interests sleep over, _only_ because she was concerned over Luna's safety.

She did not break rules just because she felt like it. She had been very concerned for Luna's welfare as a matter of fact, the girl apparently thought nothing of the dangers associated with the Forbidden Forest. Who wouldn't be concerned?

Though how Luna could be so disconcerting about mucking about in the forest and yet still be so resistant to spending time in her own house, was beyond Hermione. She knew that Luna was often teased, but surely it couldn't so bad, could it?

Certainly, Hermione wasn't exactly popular in her own house either, but she didn't let the pettiness of the other students bother her. Or at least she tried not to; those were things that had to be faced if one was going to deal with the situation properly.

And even if it was that bad, and Hermione was frantically working out when in her school schedule she could find out exactly what was happening within Ravenclaw territory, that was still _no_ excuse not to wake Hermione up to say goodbye. A note, even one as sweetly weird as the one Luna had left, was no substitute.

Exasperated Hermione rolled over in bed; she only wanted to keep Luna safe. One would think that Luna would help out a bit in this endeavor.

Of course Luna's safety wasn't really any concern of hers. She knew that, and she shouldn't have stepped into this whole situation. Except, Hermione was also quite certain that Luna herself wasn't overly concerned about it either.

And there in was the problem. The damn girl needed a _keeper_.

Hermione couldn't be anybody's keeper.

It was truly dim of her to want to both have Luna beside her, and to ignore any increasing importance that the girl held for her. It was silly. And she was still really peeved at Luna for leaving so rudely; after all, didn't she think that Hermione would be hurt by it? Perhaps she had _meant_ to cut Hermione like that.

Or, more likely, had the girl actually thought that the note would be enough?

God, Hermione rubbed her head, she was acting like the two of them had actually _slept together_. But all they had done was sleep. Hermione knew it wasn't really a big deal; Luna at least certainly didn't seem to think so, therefore Hermione really needed to get her act together.

She was behaving like a lovesick Hufflepuff, mooning about in bed as she was. She sat up in bed.

Overreacting was not something she was into. She was rational. And sane most of the time too.

She traced the space on the pillow where Luna's head had laid. It was for the best after all, if the girl had managed to sneak out of here early enough not to get caught.

Either way, she shouldn't have let her emotions sway her into offering the girl sanctuary last night. For one thing, it was against school policy for a student to sleep in the dormitory of another house.

Granted it was one that was broken repeatedly, but as a seventh year, she should have set a better example. For the other thing, she knew she was misrepresenting her intentions to Luna.

She didn't want a relationship with the girl. She didn't want one with _anyone_.

Hermione's other commitments might have offered up a terrific excuse to get Ron to give up his silly notions, but even that had misfired in the end. But wasn't her own behavior just as silly? None of them had time for the normal silly flights of fancy that most people indulged in during adolescence.

Hermione knew she was too young to actually trust that any relationship she entered into now would last. And she didn't have the time to waste on a temporary, childish one. She certainly didn't have the extra energy to deal with the inevitable end to the relationship.

Just look at Ron and Harry, all of their various relationships had ended quickly and badly. It was silly to think any of that was worth the effort.

Hermione quickly scrambled out of bed, she had wasted enough time on this situation already this morning. Had wasted a lot of the last several days, actually. There were more important things that she needed to do.

Straightening her bedcovers, she hurried so she could leave some time to give one last proofread to her potion's essay before heading down to breakfast.

They were here to learn after all; in the long run any relationships she had here wouldn't matter. So it was irrelevant to the rest of her life if she left here without indulging in that particular activity. Hermione bet that lots of people didn't date while they were this young.

Her parents, after all, hadn't met until they were in dental school. Therefore, nothing had come of any of the relationships they might have had before that. And they were happily enough married, weren't they? Assuming she survived the war, she still had plenty of time then to settle down with someone.

And if she didn't… Well, better not to form any attachments, right? She didn't want to leave anybody crying after her. And she didn't want to be the one left crying either. And with the danger they would be in during the war... Anybody attached to her would be a target, just as she herself was a target.

Granted, Luna was probably already a target, because of what she had already done and was doing for the war… So Hermione _certainly_ had no business endangering Luna's life (or her own) any further with some ill thought-out relationship.

Hermione couldn't believe the mess she had gotten herself into during these last several days. It had really only been that long since she first kissed Luna. Hermione felt her face burn once again. She didn't know what had come over her. She had always been the collected and rational one in her house.

Granted it wasn't hard to earn that title in Gryffindor. But still.

She had no business going all hormonal and _hufflepuff_ over a girl she had kissed just once. Granted, as far as kisses go, it had been an awfully nice one. But it was still silly, and still just as meaningless. She would have to make sure she didn't mess up again.

Avoiding the girl when possible would work. Not touching her too, would help. These were simple things that she could surely manage well enough. Convinced that she now had everything properly controlled, Hermione turned her thoughts back to what she had to do today.

After all, she had much bigger things to worry about. Like the war, school, and all the other concerns in her life that were truly _important_.

Ignoring how that excuse was evolving into a repetitive mantra in her head, Hermione turned her attention to her potion's essay again. She wanted it to be perfect.

XxXx

After a quick shower to get the telltale wet wood smell out of her hair, Luna pulled on a fresh uniform and patted at her hair with a towel. She made a face in the mirror, and fixing the way her cork bottle necklace hung about her neck, she cheated a bit and cast a quick detangling charm over her head, before blinking back at the foggy mirror.

She was sure she knew a defogging charm. How did it go again? Her eyebrows scrunched up in thought. She had heard other girls using it before in here… She twisted a lock of wet hair about her finger as she tried to remember the sequence of how the wand movements went.

"If you're trying to fix that rat's nest on top of your head, you really ought to try applying a _brush _to it Loony." Padma Patil whispered grumpily from where she was fixing her eye make-up in the mirror beside Luna. She wasn't exactly a morning person from what Luna knew.

And the ability of the walls in the girls' bathroom to echo _anything_ was simply horrid. All the girls complained of how a toilet flushing could be heard clearly even up in the Common Room. You could even hear it when some of the girls would use a shower stall in tandem with a girlfriend. Luna usually found it was terribly funny.

Luna looked at other girl thoughtfully; she needed to tell her about the DA. They were alone in the bathroom. This wasn't likely to remain the case for long. And of course, she might not get another chance to speak with the seventh year.

They weren't quite friends. But they were alone in the bathroom. Probably the best time. She'd better whisper or everyone in the Common Room would probably hear it too.

"Do you remember the DA?" Luna busied herself with straightening her tie; this is how you look nonchalant.

Padma looked over at the other girl, did she even hear or understand what Padma had been talking about?

How in the world did Hermione Granger pass over Ron Weasley, the best friend of Harry Potter, for this silly little girl who couldn't even fix her tie without giving it an undue amount of attention? It boggled the mind.

Padma rolled her eyes; it wasn't like the girl could even comb her hair properly, "The one from a couple years ago? Yes, but it stopped last year, remember? Why do you even care to know?"

Luna looked down at her wand, and then folding her still wet hair into a slight askew bun, stuck the wand in to secure her hair into place. Now it wouldn't look so unkempt.

"This Saturday evening, Harry Potter is starting it up again." Relieved, Luna ducked out of the bathroom, and headed up to breakfast. It was done.

She couldn't wait to see Hermione.

XxXx

For once Luna felt quite awake at breakfast, it was a weird experience she thought, like having electric heat searing down her spine. Though at least thanks to the still lingering clouds from the storm last night, the morning light in the Great Hall was dampened a bit. The dim natural light prompted the use of the hall's chandeliers that cast slight, dancing shadows across the room.

It was really as good of a morning as there ever was.

She kept one eye upon Hermione, of whom she could only see pieces of from where she was sitting on the other side of Neville. Her other eye was reading the latest copy of _The Quibbler_. Luna cocked her side to one side for a minute, Neville it seems, had been getting wider lately. Maybe he had taken to having seconds servings of pudding, or something.

Strange how she could barely see Hermione from behind him.

Of course, it really wasn't helping that for whatever reason, Hermione was sitting all hunched over like that. Usually the prim girl had ramrod _perfect_ posture. Hermione rather liked doing things perfectly, it was rather puzzling at times.

But really that made her current behavior kind of bizarre, why would she be all crouched down like that? She hadn't brought a textbook to breakfast again, had she? Maybe.

Ignoring the jabbing elbows of her housemates as they scrambled about eating their breakfast, Luna grabbed an apple from one of the serving dishes. With Neville sitting there blocking Hermione out like that she'd never catch her eye.

Oh well, they were supposed to study together for the DA tomorrow. She'd see her then. And the actual DA meeting was only couple days after that. So really, she didn't need to see Hermione today. But it would have been nice.

Luna yawned. Breakfast had just gotten a lot more boring. Too bad she had to go to the lakeshore during lunch. Maybe she'd catch Hermione's eye during dinner. And if not, she would see her tomorrow.

Luna felt uncharacteristically sulky as she headed off to her first class.

XxXx

Several hours later and even after the lunch that Luna hadn't attended, Hermione felt almost proud of herself. She had resisted the urge to glance over at Luna all during breakfast.

Instead she had alternated between talking about their classes with Neville and Harry, and reading about all the new Death Eater activity in _The Daily Prophet_. The ongoing events in the paper had certainly helped get her mind off of Luna.

She hadn't even gone looking for her during lunch. Instead she had helped a very sheepish Ron fix his potion's essay. That boy wasn't ever going to pass his N.E.W.T.s, if he didn't start revising now. She would make up another timetable for him. Maybe that would help.

Harry's face had still been rather dark at lunch. Hermione figured he had looked across the headlines at breakfast, but really the recent news wasn't all that horrid compared to what had been happening almost weekly since the middle of summer. She didn't know why he was still upset about it at lunch.

Though he had come to breakfast looking rather upset too. She ought to ask him what is going on. He was bound to tell her eventually. She wondered if it had anything to do with the family in Derbyshire.

Just last week, the entire family of five had been found murdered, the death mark hanging forlornly over their house. The father of the underaged children had been a muggle, and Hermione could only deduce that their mother hadn't had a chance of protecting her family alone against the death eaters' attack. Any further details of the attack had been left out of the original article

But the paper was still printing reactions from it in today's paper. A week old, it made still made Hermione's heart pound with worry. The attacks had initially made Harry look rather sick too, but he had gotten rather good at wiping that off his face quickly.

Now he just tended to look angry a lot at breakfast.

That's what they were fighting against. That's what she needed to focus upon. That could have been her parents.

McGonagall swore that every necessary precaution had been taken to protect Hermione's parents, and all of the other parents of the muggleborn students. Especially since Hannah Abbott's mother was killed last year. The girl still hadn't returned to Hogwarts.

XxXx

Ron had to admit that he was rather glad him and Hermione had patched things up. His potion's essay certainly had showed a marked improvement. So now he was dastardly thrilled to finally turn in the revolting thing to Slughorn first thing after lunch.

Whoever had decided that seventh year, N.E.W.T. level potions would be perfect right after lunch ought to be hexed for their efforts. He had learned the hard way not to eat too heavy of a lunch right before potions.

Now he was usually rather hungry halfway through his afternoon classes, which was still hours and hours away from dinner.

Bloody poor planning on somebody's part.

Potions that day was rather boring at least. Perhaps he'd have time to nip something from the kitchen before the next class.

All they were doing was adding a bit of this or that to their cauldrons (admittedly now that he had made up with Hermione, she was doing most of that part, he just sliced or diced, or did whatever she said to whatever she handed him).

It was a perfectly boring double potions, and so he was more than happily planning out what he would suggest to Ginny after Quidditch practice. She was going to love all of his ideas.

He had spent all last evening after the DA, while Lavender and Parvati had been talking and giggling at him in the Commons Room about the bloody dresses they were planning to wear to the Halloween feast and whether or not it would be turned into a ball, planning out his patrols.

He had half of the castle already mapped out. It was going to be great. He couldn't wait to show it all to Ginny after practice.

He was interrupted in his ponderings by Hermione handing him a piece of what looked and smelled like shriveled up, moldy bark with explicit instructions to crush and chop it carefully.

Trying not to breath, he started in on it. Eh, maybe he wouldn't be going to the kitchens next after all. This was disgusting. Why couldn't they just use something else, anything that didn't smell like vomit?

He didn't understand why everything had to be so disgusting. Seriously, why didn't they all die every time they ingested some of these vile concoctions? Considering some of their ingredients you'd think they'd be lethal. Plus, they always reeked.

He hated potions.

XxXx


	7. Ch 7: Danger Lies Where Fawns May Travel

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

_Chapter Seven: Danger Lies Where Fawns May Travel_

Author's Notes: Thanks to everyone who reviewed, and for anyone who managed to avoid chemistry in any of its forms, sublimation is when something in solid form goes straight to its gaseous form without turning into a liquid first. The most popular example, dry ice.

XxXx

Luna stood stoically below the high, small window within her alcove only one floor up from the library. There was a rain-cleared, cold autumn night outside tonight; Luna stepped closer to soak in the moonlight streaming down through the window.

Slowly she pointed her wand down and whispered softly to heat the air that drifted quietly along the floor. Immediately she could feel the warm air rising, escaping out of the cracked window. It wasn't like the ventilation spells cast all over the potions classrooms, but she supposed it would do.

Hermione hadn't seemed herself at dinner. She and Ron were speaking again. Luna had watched her, and she hadn't seemed happy.

Following the little breeze out through the window with her eyes, Luna could see something flying erratically out there, scratching glowing, harsh lines across the dark sky.

Fawkes flew wild now that Dumbledore was dead. She could see him sometimes, like tonight, flying erratically past a window or towards the forest, or just aimlessly past any number of places. But whenever she tried to get a better look at him, he'd disappear before her eyes could focus again against his brightness.

She could see him better now that he had only moonlight to compete against. She'd seen hundreds of glimpses, thousands of bright shadows shrieking across the edge of her eye. It made her feel like she'd been spinning in circles for days, or weeks. Months.

The magical bird was pulling away from them all, his wild, frenzied nature claiming him back, as Dumbledore had once claimed him.

He unnerved her, and for a moment, made her feel wildly happy all at once. He didn't need anything or anyone, not any more. Not like her.

She turned back to where her new purple potion had been seeping slowly into its glowing pebbles behind her. Luna was horribly, riotously pulsing with excitement.

Finally, after several long hours of soaking, almost none of the liquid was left, the hot pebbles had absorbed as much as they could hold. It was time. Lowering her wand until it was almost level with where the pebble laid at the bottom of the cauldron, she started her pitched chant, and then watched grinning, as the pebbles sublimed madly up into the air and twisted about in her makeshift breeze as they mostly spiraled harmlessly out of the window.

Then she fainted.

XxXx

Harry spent the next morning at breakfast brooding over the _Daily Prophet_ and crunching on some toast. The wizarding paper was filled with more of the usual; Death Eaters had struck again. This time for once, at least nobody had died. Six were in St. Mungo's though.

It was a typical Thursday morning then. If all were to follow the general pattern set earlier this summer, this weekend would probably hold a deathly end for some poor family or another at the Death Eaters hands. It made Harry's blood boil; Voldemort was getting bolder by the month. And he was stuck safely here at Hogwarts, unable to be of any real help. Not that anybody else was really managing to stop them.

This Saturday evening, while they were doing a preliminary skills test upon everybody at the DA meeting, some family would likely awaken to find Death Eaters upon their doorstep.

The Order was trying to keep up, but they usually couldn't get word of a planned attack until just before it happened. So rescue ended up being rather hit or miss more than half of the time. Morale was sinking and panic was spreading all over the wizarding community, and at Hogwarts too. Three students had already been pulled out by scared parents.

And at dinner last night, regardless of the panic and danger spreading sickly across the country, McGonagall had announced that there would indeed be a Halloween Ball this year. Harry had been shocked to hear that it was indeed still October. It seemed like so much more time had past, with everything that was happening.

And Harry wasn't excited at all to hear that for at least one night, nobody would be able to tell who was who on Hogwarts grounds. Under the masks encouraged by the ball, there could be anybody. They needed to have patrols out that night. They'd have to plan for it, Ron and some of the other more fun-loving members of the DA were not going to be happy about pulling shifts that night.

Harry for one was glad to have an excuse not to dance and pretend to be joyous and carefree; he planned to be on shift all night. They'd have to remember to coordinate security that night with McGonagall and the Order as well.

Surely they'd be there to handle matters on the Hogwarts grounds, which was one area of Hogwarts that Harry didn't want DA members wandering around during such a risky night. Perhaps the Order member that was teaching transfiguration, and Remus. He'd have to check when the full moon occurred around Halloween.

Then again, assuming that Voldemort didn't strike at Hogwarts on Halloween night, the Order might indeed be too busy elsewhere to help supervise a school dance. He'd have to have Ron and Ginny plan a backup schedule in case the extra Order members got pulled away.

Harry stared sullenly down at his plate. He wanted to go out with the Order members to help stop the Death Eaters. But Hogwarts would have to be his main concern, without the DA, who would be left to keep the students safe? The professors couldn't be everywhere.

XxXx

That evening Hermione waited nervously for Luna to show in the library. Where was the girl anyway? Granted the girl was rarely anything near punctual, but she'd already been waiting almost ten minutes for the girl to show up. And the girl hadn't shown at meals.

Fiddling uselessly with her pen, Hermione gave it up and grabbed her topic list to go to the bookshelves to get started. Luna could help when she finally got there.

Half an hour later Hermione looked up from where she was making notes upon transmutable spells, to find a rather bleary eyed Luna plop stiffly into the seat across from her. "You're late. We were to begin at half-past six".

When Luna didn't respond to Hermione's portentous tone, Hermione couldn't help rolling her eyes back to her own book, the girl barely seemed to _notice _when Hermione wasn't being really friendly. The other girl merely pulled one of the books in Hermione's pile towards her and opened it to the page Hermione had marked as of interest.

Hermione let her eyes rake over the girl she had refused to look at for the last several days; she didn't look so good, her eyes were red, she seemed kind of drawn in… she generally looked rather peaked in fact… Hermione started adding up symptoms in her head. They did not make her happy.

"You are _not _hung-over," she scrunched up her nose, "Luna, it's only Thursday! You're worse than Ron."

Luna only sent her one of her sheepish sort of grins in return. She didn't really know what a hangover should feel like, but it was as good as a way to describe her pounding head and sluggishness as any other. She rather _did_ feel as though she had spent the entire night sleeping hanging upside, instead of upon the stone cold floor of her alcove. Was this why vampires always looked so upset?

Maybe next time she should try for better ventilation.

With Hermione still shaking her head a bit at the audacity of the younger girl in front of her, the two of them went back to taking notes on spells that might be of interest to the DA.

Honestly, Hermione thought, it wasn't like Luna wasn't smart enough to know not to drink so much that she was still feeling its effects the next _evening_, or even how to relive a handover's symptoms when she should earn herself one. She wasn't Ron, for god's sake, not to know how to perform a spell without getting half the pronunciation or wand movements wrong.

She sniffed as she turned back to her notes after one last glance at the other girl feeling quite justified for deciding against developing their relationship any further. Obviously they wouldn't suit. It was a school night after all. The girl really ought to have better decorum than this, she was a _sixth year_, they were both practically adults.

XxXx

Luna wandered slowly down to Ravenclaw territory after she finished studying for the DA with Hermione, feeling lighter than she had all day.

Blending softly into the shadows as she made her way downward, she abstractly thought about all of the work that was due in class within the next several days. She really ought to work some more on it. As cloyingly close as the walls usually felt in the Common Room, she wouldn't have time to wander about the castle at all tonight.

It was a good thing then that she didn't have anything going in the alcove either. There was no way any of the other Ravenclaws would let her go off alone until her schoolwork for tomorrow was done. Sometimes being in the house known for its dedication to knowledge was a bad deal for those less than completely absorbed by their schoolwork. There was just so much more interesting things to learn…

Ignoring the area where the rest of her year was cloistered across the room, she settled sedately into one of the other corners of the octagon-shaped room, and went back to studying. At least they were finally studying elemental magic in Charms; she hurriedly started scribbling everything that came to mind down upon her parchment. She could cross check it later in her text.

If she could just get to the minimum length for the essay, perhaps she would still have time to research for more useful air-oriented spells or charms. Perhaps they could incorporate some elemental magic into what they were doing in the DA. Spells grounded in fire were pretty useful in battle, right?

She could just _bet _that with all that red hair, at least one of the two Weasleys would be good with fire. Her headache all but forgotten, she giggled as she scribbled out the last couple lines of her Charms' essay, and then turned back towards more interesting topics.

XxXx

Neville scratched the back of his head and tried to get himself to stay awake as Hermione ran through the nine tenants of human transfiguration again. They'd been at it for almost an hour, and he didn't think he'd really absorbed any of it yet. He was past frustrated, and was really only trying to pay attention to the smarter witch to stay polite.

He could swear that he wasn't usually this stupid but he was just so tired that he couldn't keep his mind focused enough to string all the long words she was throwing at him along in the right order. He was close to proclaiming it all quite hopeless.

He and Harry had already spent most of the evening working upon the little battle they would have everyone work out in the meeting on Saturday. It was a brilliant idea, surely, but he hadn't realized how much work it would be or how long it would take to plan everything.

He was lucky that Hermione was still up (not that he was completely convinced that she slept anyway) to help him with the transfiguration prep, or the professor probably wouldn't let him even do the practical tomorrow. Apparently, transfiguring your body parts into other things was serious stuff. Even if it was just a hair that wasn't even on your head anymore.

He rubbed his eyes, as he asked Hermione to go over the sixth rule one more time. Why was providing the proper limits in the beginning of the spell so important anyway? As long as they were indeed in the spell, surely they could go last or somewhere in the middle, right? Why was the beginning special?

He glanced up at Hermione as he voiced his thoughts to her, and then felt a sheepish heat rise up the back of his neck at he heard her tone change from its general lecture-mode to something even more patient and slow. He had just asked another stupid question, hadn't he? Damn.

Maybe if he promised to go over it all again during breakfast, she'd let him go to bed. It'd hopefully make more sense to him in the morning light. It couldn't possibly make any _less _sense anyway.

Excusing himself, and thanking Hermione for her help, he headed up for bed, leaving Hermione to turn back to whatever she'd be reading and taking notes upon before she turned her intellect towards the task of helping him.

He figured they were both happier for him deciding to finally call it a night.

XxXx

Ginny grinned into the brisk breeze as she hovered high above the quidditch pitch early Friday morning. She loved it when they had practice before breakfast. There was no better way to start the day than darting about on a broom early in the morning. It was better than sex even.

Not that her brother would know that. She smirked down at where Ron was currently calling everyone over so that they could start their last activity before breakfast, drills.

As the last of the team was assembling into a shaky line against the ever-present wind, Ginny mischievously smacked the back of Dean's broom, almost (but not _quite_) unseating her now-on-again boyfriend. She grinned impishly up at him, "Bet I can beat you back here after our five laps."

"You're on. When I win, I'm picking my reward." He leered playfully down at her shirt.

At Ron's shrill whistle, she laughed back at the older boy as she zoomed on ahead. "Good luck with that, I'll tell you what I want went you finally get back here. " That boy was _way_ too easy to bait.

And she already knew what she wanted when she won. And she could keep her shirt on, if she wanted to, for it as well. Hah.

She loved playing quidditch with the boys. They all were just as stupid as her brothers.

She glanced back at where Dean was deciding whether or not the outcome of the bet would be more to his favor if she won after all. Bit more useful than her brothers though.

XxXx

Hermione munched happily upon her cherry turnover as she went over her notes with Neville. She liked the third tenet the best.

"Focus upon what you want to change. See all the differences. As you perform the spell, imagine all the differences disappear. See, Neville, you just need to _focus_ and imagine your strand of hair of hair becoming a thread of silk! I can't wait until we start working upon transfiguring tissues that are still attached! I can't wait until we transfigure our arms into wings next week."

"Do you think we'll be able to fly?"

"Only if you give yourself a twenty or thirty feet wingspan, Ronald. And manage to strength and hollow out your bones. _And _hyperdevelop your chest and arm muscles. And a half dozen other things. Don't you read the text, at all?"

"My triceps are plenty developed Hermione!" Ron's face got red. "I play quidditch. Which you'd know if you and Harry ever came to the pitch every so often. It wouldn't kill you to socialize with the rest of us, you know."

Hermione hid a yawn behind her hand; Ron would latch onto only that part of her explanation. The boy was dense. Seriously. What did watching quidditch practice have to do with socializing, what would be the point? It would be rude to even _talk_ to the players. Hermione laughed behind her hand.

And she looked up into Neville's sideway glance. "What?"

"Are you going to ask Luna to the Halloween Dance, Hermione?" He smiled.

Hermione decided that Neville was _quite_ wicked as she noticed both Ron and Seamus leaning forward in to hear her answer.

"No. No I am not. We are not dating, Neville. " She included the other two boys in her distilling gaze. "I am not planning on dating _anybody_. Nor on taking anybody to the dance." She lowered her voice a little. _"There are other plans in place for the dance, remember?"_

It took just a moment for the puzzled look to slide off Neville's face. "Oh right. The shifts. Gotcha."

Ron smiled as he turned back to his breakfast. Maybe he would volunteer to patrol the halls with Hermione. They could use the extra time together; Hermione never seemed to have any time for him anymore. Even when she wasn't angry with him or something or whatever.

Then he looked down the table where he found that Lavender was looking him over with a familiar gleam in her eye. But then, he'd probably have more fun getting close and personal at the dance with the other students who weren't right down _obsessed_ with this stupid war.

That's okay. He had a plan. He would wait Hermione out on this one. It was perfect. She was only ignoring every male and interested party on Earth until after the war right? He would date her _after_ the war then. Superb. But that didn't mean that he couldn't spend time with the girl. You know, make her miss what she was preventing him from giving her.

He smiled. "Hey Hermione? Do you mind going over what we're doing in Herbology this afternoon, during lunch? I think I'm all turned around again." He gave her the smile that usually made Lavender giggle.

Hermione glanced up at him, "I would, Ron. But I've got to go over the stuff we're doing in the DA tomorrow. Lunch is the only time I've really got open to do so." Hermione glanced over at Neville, "Why don't you get Neville here to help you? He's always great in Herbology."

His plan ruined, Ron looked at where Neville was nodding and smiling at Hermione. Great. Well, he could always ask Lavender out to tide him over until the war finally ended. Heh.

XxXx

As the seventh year Gryffindors made their way towards their first classes, Ron sulkily noticed a grinning Luna Lovegood glide up to Hermione and ask her if they were still on in the library for lunch. Isn't that where that little snot kissed Hermione?

Ron paused mid-sentence from where he was speaking with Lavender about what color and type of costumes they would be wearing to the dance. Exactly why they had to match, he didn't know, but the elation he had felt when she had said yes to his invitation plummeted when Hermione started chatting amicably to Luna about meeting in the library, bleh, bleh, and bleh. Right after class. In the library. With Luna Lovegood, not him.

The Luna said something, and Hermione _laughed_, and then Luna bounced off to her next class.

_That_ was practically dating. At least by Hermione's standards. And it was way more attention that she'd given that stupid, insipid, _sixth_ _year, _little arse, than she'd given him all year. It wasn't fair.

He excused himself from Lavender's clutching arms as they went separate ways towards their classrooms, and caught up with Luna Lovegood. Really, he'd be doing the stupid chit a favor if he clued her into what Hermione wanted out of life right now. And there wasn't any bloody way it could be _her_.

"You know she doesn't even like you like that, right? You're just a friend to her. She could be dating me, but she doesn't want to date _anybody_ right now. That means _definitely _not a cocked up little snot like you. You're almost nothing to her. Just a friend, Loony, don't read anything else into it." Something finally uncurled within his chest, he laughed a bit at her shocked face, and then he hurried off to his next class before the blood in his veins had a chance to cool down.

Why in the world would Hermione want to study with _that_? It was sickening.


	8. Ch 8: Air, Water, and the Myth of Fire

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

_Chapter Eight: Air, Water, and the Myth of Fire_

Author's Notes: Thanks to all the people who waited so patiently for me to catch up with my life and update already. lol. Esp. thanks to all my reviewers you guys are awesome for sticking with me, and giving me such encouraging thoughts. And the anon reviewers, Skye Tain and ShdwKatX, thanks. :)

XxXx

_Luna, nine years old and quick, knelt at her mother's feet, meditating over her task as her mother saw to hers._

_"Child, quicker now, the potion is growing too wild, steal the heat before it gathers enough of it to escape. Gather it with Air as it rises; you are the darkest, coldest of night breezes. Feel the wind singing through your channels, feed that coldness to the potion, and take the heat for your own. You are bigger and wilder than even it. Be the swift, the chaotic gale and encompass its small breezes. You are the darkness, absorb it."_

_Luna, her small frame hunched over her focus made of black, wind-blown crystal looked up to where her mama was stirring the potion with her wand in one hand and chanting quickly with the guidance of the other._

_Already the hours she had spent sitting here gathering up the heat as it rose had sent her dark hair pressing tightly against her face with sweat. Her eyes, dark as the night breeze that burned wildly behind her gaze now, sought out the small plumes of rebellious smoke that was creeping faster as it grew in confidence._

_At least the air was clear and sweet near the floor, away from the incense and fumes of the condensing potion. Who knew it could be so hard to condense a charm into a potion? Her mama was an expert with elemental magic, and already she could see her usually calm exterior cracking. _

_It was hard to be distracted away from the pure amounts of power coursing through her thin form, but was something going wrong? Why was so much heat coming off the potion?_

_She bent closer over her work and felt the breeze she brought to her storming unhappily against her currents and channels. She looked up through where brunette clumps of hair shaded her face from the feral glow of the potion. _

_She pulled quickly at the glow, and met the dark eyes of her mama through the bright roar of power rolling fanatically within. _

"_Quicker now Child! As much as you can." Luna could see her mother abandon her experimentation, and instead focus upon containing what she had brought forth in that cauldron._

_Luna called upon the darkness once more, but she felt only more hot and tired as the hours past quickly into the night as the two of them worked frantically against the wild magic that was resisting its constraints. _

_There was still too much heat for Luna to handle as it rose angrily from its frantic, desperate prison below._

_Attracted to the Darkness, the wild magic rushed headlong at Luna, overloading what currents and channels she had and rushing chaotically into her very being. _

_It surrounded every piece of her as it embraced her own Alliance of Air, and Luna had no choice but remain open to it as it forced itself against her and through her as she fought desperately to send it upon its way outside._

_Finally the heated, enraged magic could find no more space in her currents and channels, and could find no more way to make more, and it was then that it rebounded against her and reached its final moments._

_Luna could feel the temperature and tension rising exponentially within the small room, but it was a dim sort of awareness through the wild burning of all the power overcoming her senses. _

_She didn't feel it as the magic spent itself in the easiest way it could, without being willfully forced in another direction, by exploding rapidly away from her. In huge spirals spinning out from where her ensnarled body served as the eye of the storm, it uncurled its energy, its passion, its wildness, and levied destruction against anything standing against it._

XxXx

Luna awoke Friday morning before dawn hot and sick with memory, her hands flying up to her face as she felt the ghost of hot vapors burning her from the inside out once more.

Luna shook as she forced her heart to slow and quietly struggled to calm the wild panic that had lodged itself within her so recently reawakened channels. She had come closer just a night or so ago to turning a potion into a charm.

It really had only changed from liquid to air without any true magical change, but she had managed to use a moonlit stone focus so full of the Darkness that it had called wildly to her and actually _glowed _with its heat. And while the potion still used its water magic, it was doing so based in _air. _And she had used her own magic to do it.

She had channeled air, directed it, in a way she hadn't managed but dearly wanted to, since that accident when the wild air magic had burned and singed her from the inside out. Her magic was but a pale refection of what it had been for so long, and now she had finally gotten it working again.

The wild darkness that had been her goal, her focus for so long was morphed now, but so was she. And the wild magic was finally churning within her once more.

Luna climbed hurriedly out of bed, dressed, and headed out into the still darkened halls of Hogwarts towards where the first false rays of dawn where streaking across the sky outside.

The experiment may have burned the some of the Darkness from her, bleaching her through and throughout like the sun muted and changed the night's currents come morning. But that didn't mean that she couldn't follow the morphed currents and learn to use the air magic to gather and affect _actual_ magic instead of just using it to let her see the magical currents like she had while turning the phase of the potion…

XxXx

Luna layed limp but brimming with suppressed excitement in the cool grass as she watched the Gryffindor Quidditch team head towards the pitch. The weather today was clear and still, with little wind to speak of even at the elevation quidditch was played at.

Wouldn't the Gryffindors want a nice breeze to play in? She could give them at least that. And she could practice with her element. Excellent.

She cleared her head until she felt only the frenzied buzzing of her own thoughts in her ears, and she searched her memory for that long ago used signalment that she used to draw herself into meditation.

Then she felt it, her magic churning within her like millions of small puffs of air that swirled into breezes that forced themselves upon one another to form wind that she gathered wildly, chaotically even, to birth a burning, cold gale for her to gather burning wildly from beyond her pale eyes.

The she brought that swiftness of zooming power up higher where she could feel the first rays of sunlight warming it emboldening it, and stroked that molten mayhem until she let it burst from her hold to course down through the currents all leading now to her wand clutched tightly in her left hand.

She raised it, and using the newly rising sun as a focus, released it, _all _of it.

Focusing past the slight power buzz that crackled in her ears, she grinned wildly from her prone position in the grass as the world went crazy around her. The grass wiping in a sudden strong breeze, and she could even see tree branches swaying as her breeze reached them in surprise.

Pale yellow hair wiping violently around her, Luna grinned madly up at where the quidditch team was just starting their practice. She hoped they enjoyed her little effort.

Still wild-eyed and happy, Luna headed back to the castle for breakfast, her magic still coursing strongly within her and filling her head with its lofty burn.

XxXx

Friday morning after breakfast saw Ginny walking next to manically absent Luna, wishing she was back up high in the air where the wind was even strong now than it was an hour ago, and following a rather small group of sixth years outside to where her least favorite class of the day, Care of Magical Creatures, was being held on the south edge of the forest.

She really hadn't had much choice in the matter, to her unsurprised dismay she hadn't gotten high enough O.W.L.s in her other subjects to avoid taking the class. So she wasn't all that academic. She certainly wasn't like Hermione, she hated the pointlessness of class work sometimes, and it showed.

It wasn't even, she thought as she butted a small stone with the inside of her shoe and listened to Luna nattering on about how excited she was about class today, like she was as slow as most of the people who continued on with Care of Magical Creatures.

She may not be as into magical creatures as Luna was, but she wasn't slow. She just didn't see the point of studying for hours and hours to learn something she'd forget a couple weeks after exams or would never be called upon to use once she was out of school.

So here she was, with some of the silliest Hufflepuffs that Hogwarts had to offer, and Hagrid had Singed Toad-Dragons for them to handle today. Luna at least was the only one excited about that. But then, she tended to get excited about the weirdest and most senseless of things. Like studying with Hermione, which Ginny avoided at all costs unless it was related to hexes. Or Defense.

Luna, the Hufflepuffs, and Ginny settled down cross-legged upon the grass near the edge of the forest. Hagrid had twelve small cat-sized boxes set up behind them. Unfortunately, there was enough so that they would each have their own.

Ginny looked the boxes over carefully as Hagrid started his brief lecture on how one handles toad-dragons. Apparently they would be responsible for keeping these things from death for the rest of the school year. She groaned. They would require extracurricular care.

Luna was taking hurried sort of cramped notes, for once at rapt attention, though it was wasted today on the most useless class offered at Hogwarts.

But it meant that Ginny could copy the notes later on, though she expected to spend a little time later on figuring out what was true and begotten from the lecture, and what parts Luna had imagined up on her own. Peering over Luna's shoulder, Ginny was pretty sure that quite a bit of what was to be found upon her parchment hadn't been mentioned by Hagrid. Lovely.

Ginny sighed. She really wished that Hagrid would just let them get started on whatever they had to do today. What was the point of having a textbook if Hagrid just repeated everything to them in class?

That reminded her, she was behind on her transfiguration reading, and on her nonverbals. Sixth year homework really was just too much. Maybe Hermione could help her later on.

Ginny wanted to get this class started already; maybe then they could get out early. But Hagrid was still going over how to hold the things still. Merlin, how complicated could 'don't drop it' be?

But at least the DA was meeting was tomorrow, and she couldn't wait. She and Ron were going to pass around sign up sheets for the patrols. It was exciting to be doing something useful.

Eh, now Hagrid was talking about how the toad-dragons could _spit_ acidic slime. She cocked her head a bit, seven feet was quite the impressive range for something the size of a cat.

When they finally got the chance to take them out of their boxes, Ginny smiled to see that they weren't dealing with adult toad-dragons, but baby ones that maybe weighed half a kilo.

Hers was an ugly, red and yellow blotchy looking creature, which was a rather drunken mix of salamander and lizard. Not toadish looking at all. She was dry to the touch too, and had four weird, angry-looking wing nubs along her back.

There was no way that these things could fly. That would be hilarious. She would have to take hers up with her on her broom once the thing finally finished its wings, and see how it managed to fly. Hilarious. Ginny loved magic.

Ginny stifled a soft smirk, at least three of the Hufflepuffs had found them to be somewhat cute, spitting slime and all, until Hagrid got to the part where that slime could burn through human skin. But the damn things were smaller than her hand, there was no way they were that dangerous yet.

Knowing Hagrid, these were probably going to be the cutest and sweetest things they'd see all year. But her little baby had just spit up on her dragonhide gloves. It was things like this that made her gloves smell bad.

But Luna liked the sizzling effect of the slime on the magical hide well enough. The strangest things made that girl happy. And it could be worse. Hagrid hadn't mentioned anything about them biting people yet.

Ginny looked over at where Luna was cooing sweetly at her little blotching red and orange thing. Huh. Maybe the two babies could play together. Did Hagrid say they were social?

Only one real way to find out.

She handed Luna her blotchy colored little spitter, and Luna promptly started cooing and fussing over it too. The odd girl was even summoning them little breezes to make them wiggle their _nubs _in. It looked weird. Ginny went to get some insects that Hagrid wanted them to feed the little things.

And she decided that this was likely to be the best lesson yet this term. Maybe she could train hers to spit on Ron.

Bringing back the grubs and beetles, she found Luna was actually humming to the silly little reptiles. Pocketing her own little creature, she decided that she liked them too.

Wait, did Luna really just reassure her creature that she'd try to find it a Wrackspurts to eat? How exactly would she do that, after all, weren't they supposed to be invisible or something?

XxXx


	9. Chapter 9: A Look Through Biased Water

**Disclaimer: **Not mine.

_Chapter Nine: A Look Through Biased Water_

Author's note: Thanks to RebelRogue127, Onions, ShdwKatX, and everyone who's stayed with the story and reviewed, you all are awesome. Sorry the next update took so much longer that I thought it would. Second note, I might or might not include things from book 7, if I do, I'll include the proper spoiler alerts.

XxXx

Luna decided upon a closer glance that darker bits were not-quite-soft. Well, maybe under the stickiness they were soft. Probably without the ink they'd be soft again. Their usual state was sweet rebellion to Luna. They were fierce and wild, yet soft and stirring. She liked the feel and glide of them across her hand… It was kind of like-

"Luna, we are _studying_, do you think you could kindly remove your fingers from my hair?" Hermione's face was pink as she spoke, and that pinkness deepened as her comment drew a couple amused looks from a couple tables over.

Luna smiled happily; she rather liked studying with Hermione.

They'd been studying for awhile now, Hermione's wetly ink-blotched hands paused in scratching her notes into her parchments, in order to secure her hair away from the clasping fingers of the girl sitting next to her.

In Hermione's patiently waiting silence, Luna shifted a bit closer on the bench and reached across the other girl-past her well guarded hair as well- and grabbed the top book off of the impressive pile which Hermione had already carefully considered and gathered.

"What do you think I should look for? Is this a charms' book?" Luna, ignoring the title page, started randomly flipping through the new book, "…Hum…"

Hermione's eyes widened as she took in the new danger that her carefully bookmarked and denoted pages were in, "Eh, hexes, Luna. Hexes _only_ from that one, I think…" she turned the book to a proper starting place, muttering softly as she focused not upon the smell of grass that filled her nose, "I have them all marked…Yes pages 2023-2045 looked interesting…"

Then Hermione hastily went back to her own book and jotted down more notes.

Scratch. Scratch.

And was interrupted moments later by the feel of her hair twirling around Luna's fingers. She ignored it.

Scratch. Scratch.

She was here to study, after all, even if some people can't seem to focus for longer than a minute.

Then she felt a slight tug.

Hermione sighed, and rubbing her eyes with a back of a sore hand, looked resignedly over at where Luna was smiled in the harsh lighting of the library.

"Can we focus on the task at hand, please? We don't have much time left at all, and I've still got simply loads of homework still to do back in my common room, and this pile…" Hermione grabbed at an irritate tentacle of hair that was determined to get in her mouth. It was much too bright and hot in the library today, and she thought she could feel her hair frizzing... "We don't have time for-"

"You have ink in your hair. It's pretty." Luna tilted her head back to her book and added more notes to her parchment, blotting them badly with a couple fingers.

"I cannot have," Hermione paused, grabbed at her hair, and grimaced, "Ewe… Eh, Luna be careful! Do not _dare _get that ink on your books… Here." She needed to get that girl a proper pen.

Hermione took Luna's hand quickly, and placing her handkerchief in it, watched carefully as the other girl rubbed her fingertips across it.

Quickly over the idea of cleaning her own fingers, Luna turned slightly in her chair and with a light smile traced Hermione left temple with her eyes, lifted the handkerchief, and leaning over towards the other girl, lightly blotted at an inky section of Hermione's hair. Frowning slightly, frustrated, the other girl turned to Hermione, helpless, and pouted. "It's not coming out."

Hermione barely heard her. She was too busy erasing highly inappropriate ideas from her head involving her, Luna, and flavored ink. Where do these thoughts come from? But she could no longer ignore the scent of grass, books, sunshine, and something light that seemed just so, well, Luna.

She turned a bit in her chair, but that could have been the worse thing she could do, because now she was facing the other girl, who simply leaned in even closer, the girl still had her hands in Hermione's hair, and didn't seem to notice the effect that she was having on the older girl. She was absorbed by ink.

And the girl was probably fixated once more on her _hair_ as well, which normally would be quite bad. But at least then she wasn't noticing how the color in Hermione's skin heightened the closer the girl leaned forward or how Hermione's hands dropped so naturally to her waist-to steady the girl of course- Hermione felt hot again.

The girl was all sweet angles and softness leaning up against her; Hermione was captivated, flustered, and not entirely sure how she had gotten from studying sedately to here with this girl running her fingers through her hair. And hot. She was hot. And Luna was so focused, so, well, pretty, and so close. Very close.

A little too close.

Much too close. Hermione shifted slightly in her seat, but could seem to move away.

Hermione smiled weakly up at where Luna was quite happily combing and twirling the coppery-brown hair around and through her fingers.

Then Hermione remembered the other people in the library, and blinked several times. "I'll, eh, I'll be okay, Luna. Handkerchief, please?" Hermione just out of reach of Luna's fingers.

Luna smiled, all dreamy and content, and stuck the handkerchief deep in her pocket. "I'll keep it."

Hermione kind of stared at Luna for a bit, still collecting her scattered thoughts away from where they were not allowed to go. Hermione dropped her gaze and nervously started shuffling parchment.

She was supposed to be taking notes right now? Yes, notes. For the DA.

Luna smiled at Hermione once more, "Hermione?" Hermione paused and silently looked up.

"You should take a shower."

Stricken, Hermione let her hot face drop to the tabletop. Yes, she should take a shower. A _cold _one.

Hermione didn't move until she knew Luna had left the library.

XxXx

Earlier that summer 

One unpleasantly muggy July afternoon saw one lone Harry Potter shifting hotly from where he was leaning up against one of the old decrepit sofas. He could swear that the musty walls of the library were swelling in soggily around him. Grimmauld Place was an entire reality away from what it had been last summer. It had let itself become smaller now, without all the Order members popping in at all hours of the day and night to require additional space.

Without any development in the hunt for the remaining horcruxes, there wasn't much for him to do. He had no idea where they were. He was no farther along now than he had been right after Dumbledore's death.

He felt like he was missing something. He was stuck in this house, the only one safe to stay in it now, and he was tired of feeling like the house was, eh, _staring_ at him.

But regardless of creepy, old houses, he still didn't know who R.A.B. was or where he might have stashed the actual locket… and he was likely a little depressed. And sweaty. And it probably wasn't healthy to take more than four showers a day.

There was a war going on, and the best he could do was read up on old archaic magic (of dubious use or origin), and look through all the old knick-knacks that old family houses seemed to have dripping from their seams.

What was the point of sweating in the wet heat anyway? It was annoying. And it didn't do anything for him except make him cross, which only distracted him from anything of use.

He couldn't wait to turn 17 just so he could cast a simple cooling charm already.

And early July really was a disgusting month now since the dementors were breeding again, sending sticky furls of fog throughout the area and cities. Depressing too as Ron would say.

If Ron was here. If he'd been able to see either of his friends since the term had ended. They hadn't needed the additional security of their own hideout, so the two of them had stayed close to the Order in order to gleam additional information deemed 'too adult' for them. So far all he had really heard from either of them was that Ron was occupying his extra time with quidditch and that Hermione had already finished her homework. Ironically, so had he, what with no distraction (outside of his own making anyway) and no uncle to beat the shit out of him at the mere glimmer of magic.

More communication than that was too dangerous, right now. The Death Eaters were on the move, so everyone thought, but no one really knew what they were doing or where.

Heh, someone was supposed to stop by and check on him in a day or so. Tonks would be nice to see.

But until then, Harry was reading old defense books and going through old parchments, random documents, ect that had been left in old, musty heaps in the library. The first was useful, and with any luck the second might provide a clue or two as to the horcruxes.

Harry gave up drumming the wooden floor with his wand and headed to the kitchen for a sandwich. It was a bit late for lunch, but he could take a stab at the top shelves after he ate. The books up there were suitably viewed with a side of nausea, and there was nobody to stop him anyway.

XxXx

The visit came and went, though it wasn't Tonks but Mr. Weasley who stopped by shortly to drop off a cake from Mrs. Weasley. Another mixed blood family had been badly hit by Death Eaters. And an outlying county office of the Ministry had also been hit, and several non-Order aurors had died. For now the Ministry was more or less holding.

Later that evening in the library, the _Daily Prophet_ had had more to report on the Death eater's activity, but none of it was good, and most of it seemed to be more panicked speculation than anything else.

And Mr. Weasley hadn't been able to stay long, and with a quick admonishment to keep in the house, he had flooed out quicker than he had come in.

It was a silly request; with no leads Harry had nowhere to go, and no reason to leave. He could only hope that Ron or Hermione turned up something, or that come fall, perhaps Hogwarts would shed some of her secrets.

But for now Harry was once again in the library, sitting under the dim light, with piles of mildewed books teetering about as he stared stupidly at them. He'd never been quite as literate as Hermione, and he didn't understand half the points in the old text and he couldn't read half the script in old documents. Maybe he'd send it all to Hermione. Surely she'd finished with the last bunch by now?

He'd been at it all morning and half the afternoon, but didn't really have anything else to do. Granted, death eater activity was up, but as much as he might want to be doing something… The horcruxes were more important. Besides, without a well-placed spy, the Order didn't know anything much at all. They were barely keeping up with the death eaters at this point. It was scary to think about just how useful Snape had been. Too bad he was a murderous, greasy traitor.

It seemed, much for the worse anyway as far as Harry saw it, and the Order was stretched thinly as it was. Harry really wanted to be out there, just doing something. But even he had to admit that if he were to do so, the bodyguards that the adults would probably find necessary would make the whole thing impossible and pointless. He was very much stuck.

And so he sat there on the floor where it was cooler, read old books, and thought much too often about where the remaining horcruxes were.

And that was the way it was, for now. And even Harry had to admit; the real problem was that there wasn't anything to do. The Order could go anywhere he could go, and he had already sent them to several different places that he had seen in Dumbledore's pensive, and several more that seemed like a likely hideout for a dark wizard's soul shard. None of it had come to anything.

So he was stuck in this house, probably until the war escalated more and it was no longer safe… or Hogwarts started back up. He didn't even know where the new headquarters were, had only been told that this could be made into a safe location to hide him, and a bigger location for the headquarters with some space for conditioning and training.

But what was he doing? Outside of his extended summer assignments, he wasn't in any real training. He was stuck at Grimwauld's Place. They had him leave Hedwig at school for safety considerations, so outside of letters that he could pass along through his visitors (Mr. Weasley got a letter each for Ron and Hermione), he really was in hiding. From everyone.

But considering that the school year had ended in a miserable kind of chaos, maybe he really didn't need any more letters filled with heartfelt reminiscences of Dumbledore. He had only shoved everything in his trunk, come here, eager to use the library, and get started on the next phase of the war.

Of course, that hadn't worked out as planned. And so now here he was, reading a top-shelf book on the five different magical energies and how best to twist them to do your dark, evil bidding. And yes he was mainly making more notes for Hermione to transcribe for him.

But at the end of it, he'd found himself in a deserted former headquarters with no one around, the _Daily Prophet _thrown through the fireplace several times a week for information, and no leads whatsoever. A prison of sorts, though a very safe one.

They had levied Dobby's help to keep him well and tidy here in this little house. Dobby to stop by several times a week to cook, clean, and do whatever house elves were assumed to do.

And Harry had found that it was also Dobby who could fetch something that it had taken him three weeks after Dumbledore's death to realize that he wanted.

The pensive, the one that Dumbledore had secreted away the memories of Tom Riddle in, still had other silvery strands of memory in it. Dumbledore hadn't finished training Harry; he couldn't have because Harry knew that it held more than he had seen. And now, Dobby, who had spent weeks trying to find and then access the missing pensive, finally had it. Dumbledore had indeed guarded it well against human means, but it seemed that there was little that Hogwarts itself wouldn't let one of its house elves into.

Which was kind of frightful, really.

Soon, Harry was sure, he would have more information to go upon in his search for the horcruxes. He dropped his head down onto the sofa cushion behind him. He needed that information to lead him in the right direction.

XxXx

Several nights later saw the same Harry Potter a bit sweatier and thinking even more fondly of a cold shower as he sat at a now mostly bare table bearing one old pensive in the now well locked and warded library. The house had sat empty of other people now for days. Voldemort must be keeping the Order quite busy, though according to the papers at least they were holding their own for now.

How long that would hold true was a question that was on everyone's mind. There was no spy now to report the lotions of the other side. Nothing. As little liked and often despised the man had been, he had seen to it that he had been useful right up to his bitter betrayal. It still made Harry's blood boil, but what could be done?

Nobody had seen Snape since his escape in the spring. It was rumored that Malfoy was dead though. As much as he might have thought fondly of Malloy getting his due, Harry wasn't sure what exactly he thought of that. So he tried not to think of it at all.

But all that wasn't so important now, it was time to move forward. At this point, he was willing to put up with anything to get himself closer to his goal.

Harry stuck his head in the pensive and let himself be swept away.

XxXx

August 

A blue streak shot just pass his left shoulder, sending him clumsily tumbling to his right. His shielding charm quivered a bit, and he hurriedly focused upon shooting his next hex nonverbally. Aiming behind himself, he turned and shot towards where he had last seen his opponent in the makeshift dueling studio. There wasn't anyone there now.

As he wasted precious seconds trying to locate the other man again, he ducked once more and fortified his shield. But next hex came at him from behind, throwing him against the back wall.

Sweaty and out of breath, Harry sent two hexes, one after the other, behind him and then a little to the left. He heard an intake of breath behind him. The second one hit, though it was unlikely it had gotten through Snape's shields. Nothing of his hexes had managed that so far.

But it was a good distraction, and Harry moved quickly out of range of both Snape and of the hot sunlight coming through the windows of Grimmauld Place while he prepared for his next shot.

His next spell turned the stone floor under his opponent to slick, icy glass. He heard Snape go down, and took a second to fortify his failing shields once more. He needed better shields.

Suddenly he felt a sudden lack of air surrounding him and then massive pressure bearing down upon him, forcing him to his knees. He raked his brain for the counter curse, he'd studied it only yesterday, and then fatally cast the _wrong_ counter curse, and as he fumbled to get the right one out he felt his wand wrenched out of his right hand. The proper form of the counter curse came a moment later from across the room, and Harry collapsed into a heap upon the converted basement floor.

Ten footsteps later, his wand was dropped unceremoniously in front of him.

"_Get up_."

Harry moaned, but jumped laboriously to his feet, to begin the duel anew.

Quickly he threw his battered shields back up, just in time to hear _"Igneus procella"_ come flying blindingly at him from across the room.

Wicked, dark energy blinded him as it threw him once more onto the hard floor. Even the air felt burned as he forced it into his lungs.

He hadn't been ready, and now he could barely see through his streaming eyes. But that wasn't new when it came to dueling with his professor. Former professor.

To save himself from what Snape might have to say about what he had let _that _last little spell do to him, Harry jumped up, gathering his rippling shields around him and hurtling a burn hex back across the room. He loved fire spells when they weren't being hurtled at him. Even if they were technically dark magic.

His head hurt and so did his back, but he couldn't focus upon any of that right now, he got ready to parlay and threw more power into his tattered shields as he ducked Snape's next hex.

The training continued.

XxXx

Current 

"_Igneus procella!" _Harry adverted his eyes and shot the dark stream of molten fire towards where Ron was using a large, dry tree stump for shelter, and then turned to where five feet away, Ginny and Neville were sparing with Hermione and Padma Patil.

The air was thin and hot, but Hermione was holding her own with her customary textbook precision. Patil, on the other hand, had a tendency to favor spells with too many syllables, which were hard to get out when the high altitude had you huffing for breath.

He grimaced as he watched Ginny nail a turquoise welter hex right against Patil's shiny headgirl badge. She went down tumbling, leaving Hermione to deal with not only with the vines that Neville had set upon her but also with Ginny who was already refocused and setting up her next hex.

Harry quickly rounded the small group to get better aim and threw an oil shield at Ginny to block and rebound her flash hex back to her, shattering her shields and sending her tumbling but not down for good. Neville had been standing too close, and felt most of the recoil as well. He went down.

Harry called quickly for his team to regroup off to the left, to charge into the new hole in other team's defense line before they had a chance to seal it.

With three of his four team mates gathered close to him, they charged quickly across enemy lines and then ran full tilt to where two members of the other team were left guarding their flag.

Luna Lovegood and Parvati Patil. Luna sat in the back corner of the small clearing that served as her team's base, Harry wasn't even sure she saw them all break into the clearing. Parvati, who was standing a bit closer, did see them, and sent a bright red flare thundering up into the air directly above her. Harry glanced around quickly for their black and white flag, and then scanned across the clearing again. He couldn't see it. He tried summoning it. Nothing.

Where was the flag?

Ginny, Neville, Seamus, already following them as they had breached their line quite noticeably didn't seem surprised by the lack of their flag as they came suddenly into the clearing.

Skirmishing broke out anew.

Dean Thomas and Lavender Brown dueled Neville and Ginny. Hermione kept Seamus Finnigan busy, and Harry parlayed Parvati while he looked around wildly for the flag.

He couldn't find it, but he could see Luna still sitting rigidly and ignoring the battle unfolding in front of her, focused instead above her. Harry could see nothing above her.

She was still behind Parvati. In fact as Harry dueled, no matter where Harry leapt or how he moved… Parvati kept herself between him and Luna. And the two of them had been left together to guard the flag. And only one was actually guarding while the other didn't seem to be doing much of anything at all. And Luna had always been one for odd magic.

Motioning falsely to his left, he quickly dodged right around his opponent and set a stunning hex to Parvati's back where her shields weren't at full strength. She went down, letting him send a disarming charm quickly at Luna, _who hadn't even a shield charm up_. Her wand scattered across the ground away from her, and as she grabbed madly about for it, Harry saw something falling chaotically down threw the sky.

Harry ran as the flag plummeted, spiraling faster than gravity would normally allow, and his lungs bursting from the effort and lack of oxygen, he reached the flag's wild downward trajectory and grasped the length of the throbbing flag in his hand. It was hot.

He collapsed upon the ground, breathing heavily.

The game now over, the Room replaced the forest scene with their usual assortment of low tables and couches which everyone readily plopped down upon. Harry struggled up and towards his spot beside Neville who had led the other team.

Ron's robes were still smoking from where the hex had slighted him, and Padma Patil looked a little dizzy, but other than that and a few scattered scratches and cuts, everyone looked pretty good. Their 'battle' had certainly been exciting.

Harry plopped down tiredly, the hot shaft of flag in his hand the only remnant of the previous activity, as everyone started excitedly talking about how everyone had done and what they would have done next time. Harry just shared a goofy grin with Neville and then handed him his flag.

XxXx

Several nights later saw the 7th year girl's dorm empty save for two people.

"You know Parvati, I wasn't sure at first about these new Weasley nail polishes, but the chocolate's rather good." Lavender Brown sat upon somebody else's bed with a bare foot propped up against a bedpost.

Parvat Patil sat upon her own bed nearby, painting her own nails cherry red, "I think Ron is more fond of the watermelon one though." She giggled.

Lavender smiled distractedly at that, and regarded her freshly painted toes. "I think he'll be fine…"

Parvati laughed, "I'm sure he'll-" Parvati's eyebrows furrowed as her eyes swept across something strange in the window, and thoughts about Ron's sexual preferences pushed aside, she walked silently over to it.

Hands barely touching the windowsill, Parvati gazed, completely transfixed out at the billows of smoke rising out against the shadows of the night sky.

Lavender turned her head as well and soon joined her friend at the window.

The forest was on fire.

XxXx


	10. Chapter Ten: When the Firestorm’s Within

Disclaimer: Not mine.

_Chapter Ten: When the Firestorm's Within_

Author's note: Thanks to everyone who's stayed with the story and reviewed (and another thank you to my anon reviewers YOSIV and Spatula, as I haven't thanked you yet). This chapter illuminates a couple things… and gives the plot another serious push.

XxXx

Harry Potter gazed fixed, eyes watering against the brightness, upon the wretched old, oak tree in front of him. The whole thing was creaking dangerously as flames engulfed it. Too many flames, he thought, one could barely make out the dark shapes of the branches for all the light that was being put off.

Sniffling, but otherwise reasonably focused, Harry held his wand at ready. Reassuring himself that it _was_ just a burning tree, he tried to ignore the savage and almost sinister undertone to the flames. And hoped that Voldemort had nothing to do with this.

He, Ron, and Ginny stood united, one half of a circle, and shivered against the deep chill of the forest. As close as they stood, the fire flickered madly between blue and white, but put off no heat to counter the dead cold. The air around them splintered and sparked; there was no moisture, no wind, and way too much built up energy.

A little ways around the tree, Hermione, standing amongst a couple of the professors still in their night garb, was also transfixed by the fire. She had suggested getting their help, but the fire, though obviously magical in origin, was unlike what any of them had seen so far, natural or otherwise. As it burned savagely, it sent chills of alarm across her skin. When they had thought to investigate the fire coming from the forest, this wasn't what they had thought to find.

Who sets mysterious cold fires deep in the Forbidden Forest? And why limit it to a particular tree? Especially one blackened, old tree? It was odd how the fire wasn't spreading. If the Death Eaters were behind this, Hermione couldn't quite see how they thought this could benefit them.

Unless… It wasn't Death Eaters at all. Remembering something that Luna had mentioned once in passing, Hermione stared hard at the dancing shadows within the burning core of the flames. It couldn't be… Luna would believe it. She would probably take great delight in it. Could it really be? Hermione stared harder into the flames.

Ron tightened his hold upon the edge of his cloak. When Hagrid had come across him in the Great Hall and reported a fire in the forest, he had almost laughed out loud. A fire in the forest! Well, it had definitely seemed like a wonky idea.

And yet the rickety and ugly tree was definitely on fire.

Ginny rose her wand when Hermione gave the signal, and watched as five other wands rose in a circle around the burning, screaming tree. Six jets of a viscous liquid all hit the base of the tree trunk. The liquid spat and hissed against the mad flames, but did little to counter its intensity.

They all stood there for a moment. The fire-stopping spell was doing almost nothing. If anything, the flames were now intensifying against the agitation from their spells.

Then from around the tree, Ginny saw a large, angry fireball fly out towards her, alight against the darkness of the forest. Looming too close overhead, it screamed, a horrid shriek that vibrated wickedly against her ears.

Throwing herself down to avoid red hot talons as they snatched at her face, Ginny hit the ground hard and rolled as something blistering hot scorched through the space she'd formerly been occupying. Then looking up at its underside to see it swoop frantically away in Harry's direction, she got a good look at the fireball, and blinked.

Harry cursed loudly when the fireball sent zooming torrents of flames cleaving close enough over him to ignite the hairs along the back of his neck.

The circle of six witches and wizards breaking for cover, dove out of the way as the fireball turned in midair, and screamed murderously at them as they retreated.

Looking back over his shoulder, Harry could just see the fireball flying erratically about behind them. Rocketing recklessly, it cycled around the tree as it darted and displayed aggressively in huge flares of orange, blue, and white. But it didn't follow them.

As they made their way quickly along the path towards the edge of the forest, the furious screams of the fireball did not leave them. Whatever that wild fireball was, it was still putting up a furious uproar long after they were out of sight. Harry rubbed the back of his neck.

The six of them stopped 60 or 80 meters away from the edge of the forest to catch their breath and check numbly for burns. Two still stared back at the tree.

After having the scorched mark on his neck dismissed as superficial, Harry turned to the others, "What was that?"

Ron shrugged, opened his mouth, shrugged again, and closed it. No one else spoke.

Finally into the choked silence, Ginny tore her eyes away from where they could still hear the screaming protests of the fireball, "It was Fawkes. He attacked us."

Harry stilled. Fawkes? Dumbledore's faithful familiar who had saved Harry's life not that many years ago could not have turned into that raging beast in the forest. As full of fire as it was, that thing in the forest was dark. Dangerous. Not Fawkes.

Ron spoke Harry's thoughts aloud, "That couldn't have been Fawkes, we all knew him. That wasn't anything like him. Fawkes didn't scream like that."

Ginny shrugged, "I guess he does now. He attacks us now too." At Ron's venomous look, she added, "what else do you think it could have been besides a phoenix."

Harry swallowed, "If it was a phoenix, we only know one of those it could be, and I haven't seen him since the funeral."

Hermione with her hands bearing down against her knees and her scorched hair in disarray, spoke up at that, "Luna saw him a couple weeks ago. From how she described him at the time, that definitely could have been him protecting that tree…." She paused here, catching her breath before adding what had caught her attention back at the burning tree, "And I think there was a second one in the flames."

Ron, the first to react, gaped at the idea of dealing with two territorial, fiery beasts. "Perhaps we should just leave them alone then. But why the bloody hell did he have to attack us for?"

Harry said nothing, and just stared back into the forest. His neck was still all blistered and hot. It couldn't have been Fawkes. He knew Fawkes. It just couldn't.

XxXx

Safe and secluded away from the heated chatter and excitement lower in the castle, Luna clutched her moonstone in one cold hand, and peered feverantly out the small window of her alcove. She could see some sort of wild flare whizzing about in the breeze like some sort of falling star. It exploded every other second into displays of bright blue or white.

Maybe this was what fireworks were like. Luna liked it as she stared down, transfixed, excited. The flare seemed so blissfully separate from the backdrop of the forest swallowing up behind it. Oblivious, its enthusiasm daring, it confidently danced and sang a challenging song.

Was that what it was like to be a Gryffindor? She'd felt something similar deep behind Hermione's eyes. That's what it felt like when Hermione kissed her. Suddenly, viciously, she wanted that feeling again.

It was wild. She could feel the power rise within her, an answer to its bewildering dare. Even against the Forbidden Forest, which was full of razor-sharp feralness, the flashing flare stood out. What could be wickeder than that which was usually found in the forest?

Luna kept up her visual at the window all night.

XxXx

For three nights following the attack, Hermione studied phoenixes in the library. It wasn't very helpful. She could find references and references about what to do with phoenix feathers, tears, semen, ect but nothing beyond the usual myths about how they actually lived.

It seemed that the only references she could find mentioned a couple phoenixes who had been passed down through a family for a generation or two, but then any record of either of those phoenixes just stopped. She was certain that Dumbledore did not inherit Fawkes; he had befriended him from the wild. Supposedly.

Except Hermione could find no information on how you would go about doing that. Nobody, it seemed, _had written it down._ And Dumbledore had never explained how he had managed to bond such a powerful creature.

Had those other phoenixes eventually gone feral too? Is that why the records just stopped? Did the families not want to admit they had lost their prized birds?

Hermione rubbed her forehead; there was just so little information available about the firebirds beyond their uses in spells and potions. How were they to help Fawkes, if they didn't know how he'd been tamed to begin with?

She glanced over the half dozen inches of notes that she had managed to collect, but she had already exhausted the extensive collection of books in the magical creatures section. Maybe the old headquarters' library would have something useful, she would have to owl Remus and ask him if he had time to go check it out.

She quickly set about her next task of referencing spells and making additional notations for the DA, it would not do to have a repeat of Sectumsempra this year… And Harry's mysterious source of battle spells and defensive magic would surely run out eventually.

And quite frankly, Hermione was worried that some of the younger years would need simpler spells that wouldn't require as much magic up front much sooner than that. She happily set about referencing those, now that she finally had a subject with a decent amount of material to work with.

Not far into her third book on defensive transfiguration, Hermione glanced up in surprise as a body crashed merrily into the seat next to her. Luna offered only a slight smile before pulling out her potions' essay and proceeding to scribble about on it as it suited her fancy. Hermione rolled her eyes, hadn't Ginny been complaining about that essay being due _yesterday_?

Hermione bemusedly moved her inkwell inside Luna's reach, and turned back to the book she was skimming.

After awhile of quietly juggling what three different transfiguration texts had to say about dueling, Hermione tilted her head a bit at Luna, she hadn't seen her much in the library over the last several days… Hadn't really seen her much since she'd embarrassingly gotten _ink_ all over her hair. Discreetly checking her hands over for ink stains, Hermione took the opportunity to examine the other girl for the first time in some days.

Her hair was its usual state of wayward neglect, though given her own bushy mane, Hermione could hardly fault her for not keeping her hair in an orderly knot instead of preferring to just let her hair do what it would in the direction it wanted.

And Luna did give some attention to her hair; it just wasn't exactly to tame it. But it was sort of sweet, the way she had taken lately to braiding brightly colored feathers, pebbles, and bottle caps into her hair; who else could really do that and not have it look silly or out of place? Luna was also wearing her pinkish sweater under her half-opened robes, the one that Hermione couldn't decide if it had been white or red in its former life. Her wand, absent for once from the knot atop Luna's head, was currently peaking out of a shirt cuff. The shit itself was unbuttoned at the top. In short, Luna as usual looked anything but put together.

Hermione pulled distractedly at her neatly done up necktie, as she continued looking the girl over, she looked good. She was currently bent close over her essay, scribbling furiously as the thoughts came to her and then pausing now and again to doodle something in the margins… or sometimes right in the middle of the essay. All of that happened without any sound save that of her quill. Hermione smiled, as much as she enjoyed studying with the other Gryffindors, very few of them seemed to find time or silence necessary to think.

Sometimes, when she wasn't brainstorming about dealing with Voldemort and the war, she thought what it would be like to have been sorted into Ravenclaw. Sometimes, such as now, she wondered if she wouldn't have liked it very much.

Hermione sneaked another look at the girl beside her and had to giggle a bit as she moved her inkwell for the second time out of range of Luna's elbow, the girl was sort of amazing _only_ _sometimes_.

It _was_ certainly amazing how the girl could think across the page like that; writing cramped in some spaces, sprawling in others, slanting this way and that as it moved her, and generally looking like a good three or four people had all sat down and alternated writing different bits of each sentence.

Hermione thought she would probably get a headache if she were the one reading that, but then, she'd never particularly been fond of Slughorn anyway.

But the girl was just well, Luna. She was smart, unconventional certainly, but with a certain overlaying glossiness… She wasn't awkward; she wasn't trying to be something she couldn't, or obsessed and wanting to prove herself to anyone. There was an absentminded sort of dignity that Hermione could admire about the girl.

She could be upset but still understanding, and she was definitely open-minded in a way that left few things impossible to her. She enjoyed books and learning, and Hermione had to grant it that out of all her friends… she had the most of the little things in common with Luna.

Hermione looked down and traced her small, precise writing across the page… they weren't exactly alike, and they certainly didn't hold many opinions in common. They didn't often think in similar patterns, and Hermione undoubtedly couldn't figure out what the girl might say or do next like she could with Harry, Ron, or even Ginny.

But maybe, Hermione thought as she watched Luna tap out a soft, irregular rhythm against her knee, the girl did seem to be full of nervous energy a lot of late, Hermione was simply finding something in her that she had missed amongst her Gryffindor housemates.

But seriously, there was nothing wrong with appreciating that not _all_ of her friends were obsessed with quidditch. Even if she talked about imaginary creatures and strange conspiracies instead.

Even those were somewhat more entertaining than quidditch early in the morning. Hermione fondly looked across their table at all their scattered books and notes and half-thought comments. Really in a way they were sort of a team.

Touching Luna softly upon the wrist, she smiled a little when the distracted girl glanced up hurriedly between thoughts, and then she pulled out some more of her own homework.

Perhaps she'd ask Luna later on if she knew anything about wild phoenixes.

XxXx

For nine long nights, Fawkes' burning tree stung out against the night sky every time Harry's eyes were drawn towards its place in the forest.

Harry avoided looking at the forest, and instead focused on his current correspondence with Snape. It would take Dumbledore's fiery familiar attacking him to make even Snape seem reasonable.

But Harry could understand why Fawkes might have turned from them. If Harry had a choice to pull away from all of this mess, would he? Would he turn his back on Voldemort and the prophecy, and be content to live out an ordinary, uninspired life? Was it okay that _that_ was so appealing to him?

Harry went back to writing his letter. Then he finished his transfiguration essay. Then he rewrote Ron's transfiguration essay. He was still restless.

It was with relief on the tenth night that he detected no telltale sharp glow from deep within the forest. Perhaps Fawkes had moved on. Harry refused to feel sad, and instead he destroyed the headmaster's office again in the Room of Requirement. Everything but Fawkes' old stand burned.

Then he slept.

XxXx

When Fawkes sang a loud, violent warning at her, Luna knew she was coming close to the nesting site. Was she surprised to see that the glowing light had led her back down the old path to the worn out oak tree? She wasn't sure.

Hermione and the others had said that the tree had been engulfed in flames, but now it stood as nothing more than an ashy charcoal outline of where it had once been. Bright eyed and amazed, Luna stared, but the lone phoenix atop the nest narrowed its eyes and screamed; yet remained still. Luna crept ecstatically forward… careful not to turn her back on the bird, but reveling giddily in his blazing wildness. She clutched her moonstone in her right hand.

This was Fire. Crashing, unpredictable, turbulent, a focused chaos. She had the potential for most of those things too.

She could be wild and free and unfettered. She hadn't the focus of a flame to guide her, but it couldn't enclose her either. She could drift just as quietly as an ember could glow, and she could rage louder than a firestorm. She could _make _a firestorm, if she but knew how.

She could feel the currents stirring around her, filling her.

She shook her head at that, gathering her scattered thoughts before she distracted herself once again. Ten long nights she had watched blazing glow grow dim in the forest from her alcove. The whispers around Hogwarts had said that Fawkes was back and breeding.

The first bit was completely false of course, Fawkes had never left. But breeding? Fawkes was breeding? Everything made sense, had he been breeding before Dumbledore caught him? The cold moonstone in her hand, it glowed. Phoenix fire was cold. Was the stone his, or was it the other phoenix's?

Luna gazed, unconcerned, moonstone in hand up at the nest. Her stone glowed faintly, dimmer than the thousands of brightly lighted stones that made up his nest. To think it might have one time been up there… Her eyes widened.

Her moonstone was of Fire; its potential was wasted in her experiments… Fire was just as focused as Earth was, and a lot more volatile and flexible too. It was a better match for air magic. Luna practically hummed with excitement. Air had an _affinity_ for fire magic. What would happen if she channeled her magic through the stone?

The earth focus she had used as a child had limited the flow of magic through her on that fateful night when she was nine, how much better could she have done with a stone based in Fire?

Creeping forward, her eyes reflecting the wild light shining in front of her through the night, she wafted to where she had first found her lone pebble.

Had Fawkes bred here in this spot before? It would be amazing. Dimly and unimportant beside the cold throbbing of the pebble she held in her hand, she heard a screaming racket build up around her. Her magic piercing through her, she kneeled down to stare at the ground before her, missing the angry wing beats joining the bird in the tree.

The wild mate, responding to Fawkes' angry plea, pecked Luna swiftly from behind sending Luna fumbling forward and scrabbling for her wand as furied bites burned down the side of her head and neck. She felt rather than saw the power that was Fawkes rise from the nest to join the attack.

Magic within her stirred and rebounded against the stone clutched tightly in her other grasp, a small answer to the wild demand before her.

But still, the blazing magic rose instantly around her and now crying franticly at the cold flames chasing her from without and within, Luna ran. The phoenixes following swiftly above, darting down and across Luna's path to burn, scorch, and cut across her in wicked delight. Fire once hot in their defense, now burned out of control, and the birds gave chase.

With the hot wind in her ears, cold stone in her hand, and burning pain consuming her being, Luna forced herself to keep running. Half thoughts and wild glimpses of metaphysical magic burning out of control cut into her. And the stone kept on churning a volcano of magic through her. Given little direction, the small stone turned Luna's full currents into a raging torrent, and she knew nothing to stop it.

She ran.

Dizzy and confused from the lack of oxygen, she could not think, could not aim, could not defend, and could not _see_ in the dense, burning foliage of the forest. She had to get out.

Stumbling madly as the magic within her sang pulsing through her currents as it had done only once before, Luna could smell the sizzling from her hair. She was ripped and tattered, magic going everywhere, and still the stone kept pulsing.

She could feel the wildness descend upon her, holding her within its spiral… building into the tempest that might save her from the phoenixes only to tear her up itself.

Tears as yet unnoticed stung freely down her face she felt the pain and burns crash repeatedly against her magical channels; her thoughts, a wild gale _burning_ wetly through her veins. She knew not which damage was from the phoenixes or from within her. Breathless and a little hysterical, Luna could only try to outrun it all.

With the flaming attack of the wild phoenixes hounding at her back, Luna broke free from the opaque, hot air of the forest. Turning quickly and almost falling, she ran parallel to the edge of the trees, forcing the birds to pull slightly ahead and away from her.

And then grasping her wand, she did the only thing that she thought could save herself. She let it all go.

"_Pluvio__inundantia!" _Luna gestured wildly over her head as the overshot phoenixes careened willfully down towards her, fiery screams echoing madly in pitch as the phoenixes gained speed.

Luna tripped and went down flailing as a wall of water crashed down upon her. Her body screamed, but the wicked fire's hold on her lessened.

Then choking painfully against the force of her own spell, she rolled over, cradling her burning aching body together into a tighter and tighter circle as the cold, frigid water poured down over her still.

Her skin, already flickering with magic and heat, sizzled against the chilling flood. Petrified and her currents burning fiercely within her, Luna fell into a deep fever, lost and adrift in molten shock and pain.

She moved not again for a long time.

XxXx


End file.
